WeightControl.com Interview with:
Arpana Gupta, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Co-Director: Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center at UCLA
Director: Neuroimaging Core
G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience
Ingestive Behavior and Obesity Program
UCLA Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases
David Geffen School of Medicine
UCLA Los Angeles, CA
WeightControl.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Neighborhood characteristics, such as crowding, number of households in poverty, and rate of unemployment, have an effect on health, including brain health, beyond one’s individual income/education level.
Our study adds to this evidence by showing an effect of neighborhood disadvantage on an important brain feature, cortical microsctructure, which impacts brain communication and information processing.
Further, we found that some of the effect, particularly in brain areas involved in emotion, reward, and cognitive functions, was related to increased body mass index in poorer quality neighborhoods.