Top

Published in:

01-06-2013 | Review

Systematic Review: Are Overweight and Obese Individuals Impaired on Behavioural Tasks of Executive Functioning?

Authors: Sian Fitzpatrick, Sam Gilbert, Lucy Serpell

Published in: Neuropsychology Review | Issue 2/2013

Abstract

This review was aimed at systematically investigating the evidence suggesting that obese individuals demonstrate impaired performance on behavioural tasks examining executive functioning abilities. A systematic review of literature was carried out by searching five separate databases (PsycINFO, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and PubMed) and a hand search of relevant journals. Twenty-one empirical papers were identified from the search criteria and the results were considered in relation to different executive functioning domains. There is little consistency of results both within and across different domains of executive functioning. The review suggests that obese individuals show difficulties with decision-making, planning and problem-solving when compared to healthy weight controls, with fewer difficulties reported on tasks examining verbal fluency and learning and memory. A lack of replication and underreporting of descriptive data is a key limitation of studies in this area and further research is needed to examine the mechanisms underpinning the relationship between obesity and executive functioning.

Alvarez, J., & Emory, E. (2006). Executive function and the frontal lobes: a meta-analytic review. Neuropsychology Review, 16(1), 17–42.PubMedCrossRef

Avenell, A., Broom, J., Brown, T., Poobalan, A., Aucott, L., Stearns, S., et al. (2004). Systematic review of the long-term effects and economic consequences of treatments for obesity and implications for health improvement. Health Technology Assessment, 8(21), 1–182.

Bechara, A., Damasio, A., Damasio, H., & Anderson, S. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7–15.PubMedCrossRef

Benton, A., & Hamsher, K. (1976). Multilingual aphasia examination. Iowa City: University of Iowa.

Boeka, A., & Lokken, K. (2008). Neuropsychological performance of a clinical sample of extremely obese individuals. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 23(4), 467–474.PubMedCrossRef

Bolton, H. (2010). Examining perseveration in the context of depression and starvation to inform an understanding of cognitive inflexibility. Doctoral thesis, UCL (University College London).

Brogan, A., Hevey, D., & Pignatti, R. (2010). Anorexia, bulimia, and obesity: shared decision making deficits on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 16(4), 711–715.PubMedCrossRef

Buchwald, H., Avidor, Y., Braunwald, E., Jensen, M., Pories, W., Fahrbach, K., et al. (2004). Bariatric surgery. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 292(14), 1724–1737.

Burgess, P., & Shallice, T. (1997). The Hayling and Brixton tests. Bury St. Edmonds: Thames Valley Test Company.

Cserjési, R., Molnár, D., Luminet, O., & Lénárd, L. (2007). Is there any relationship between obesity and mental flexibility in children? Appetite, 49(3), 675–678.PubMedCrossRef

Cserjési, R., Luminet, O., Poncelet, A., & Lénárd, L. (2009). Altered executive function in obesity. Exploration of the role of affective states on cognitive abilities. Appetite, 52(2), 535–539.PubMedCrossRef

Dahl, A., Hassing, L., Fransson, E., Berg, S., Gatz, M., Reynolds, C., et al. (2010). Being overweight in midlife is associated with lower cognitive ability and steeper cognitive decline in late life. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 65(1), 1–6.

Danner, U., Ouwehand, C., van Haastert, N., Hornsveld, H. & de Ridder, D. (2012). Decision‐making impairments in women with binge eating disorder in comparison with obese and normal weight women. European Eating Disorders Review, 20, 56–62.

Davis, C., Levitan, R., Muglia, P., Bewell, C., & Kennedy, J. (2004). Decision-making deficits and overeating: a risk model for obesity. Obesity, 12(6), 929–935.CrossRef

Davis, C., Patte, K., Curtis, C., & Reid, C. (2010). Immediate pleasures and future consequences. A neuropsychological study of binge eating and obesity. Appetite, 54(1), 208–213.PubMedCrossRef

Davis, C., Tomporowski, P., McDowell, J., Austin, B., Miller, P., Yanasak, N., et al. (2011). Exercise improves executive function and achievement and alters brain activation in overweight children: a randomised controlled trial. Health Psychology, 20, 91–98.CrossRef

Duchesne, M., Mattos, P., Appolinário, J., de Freitas, S., Coutinho, G., Santos, C., et al. (2010). Assessment of executive functions in obese individuals with binge eating disorder. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, 32, 381–388.PubMedCrossRef

Fergenbaum, J., Bruce, S., Lou, W., Hanley, A., Greenwood, C., & Young, T. (2009). Obesity and lowered cognitive performance in a Canadian First Nations population. Obesity, 17(10), 1957–1963.PubMedCrossRef

Galioto, R., Spitznagel, M., Strain, G., Devlin, M., Cohen, R., Paul, R., Crosby, R., Mitchell, J. & Gunstad, J. (2012). Cognitive function in morbidly obese individuals with and without binge eating disorder. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 53, 490–495.

Gilbert, S. J., & Burgess, P. W. (2008). Executive function. Current Biology, 18, R110–R114.PubMedCrossRef

Gonzales, M., Tarumi, T., Miles, S., Tanaka, H., Shah, F., & Haley, A. (2010). Insulin sensitivity as a mediator of the relationship between BMI and working memory-related brain activation. Obesity, 18, 2131–2137.

Grant, D., & Berg, E. (1948). A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in a Weigl-type card-sorting problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404–411.PubMedCrossRef

Gunstad, J., Paul, R. H., Cohen, R. A., Tate, D. F., Spitznagel, M. B., & Gordon, E. (2007). Elevated body mass index is associated with executive dysfunction in otherwise healthy adults. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 48(1), 57–61.PubMedCrossRef

Gunstad, J., Lhotsky, A., Wendell, C. R., Ferrucci, L., & Zonderman, A. B. (2010). Longitudinal examination of obesity and cognitive function: results from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Neuroepidemiology, 34(4), 222–229.PubMedCrossRef

Harrison, A. (2010). Emotional Functioning in Eating Disorders: attentional bias, emotion recognition and emotion regulation. Psychological Medicine, 17, 1–11.

Hendrick, O. M., Luo, X., Zhang, S., & Li, C. R. (2011). Saliency Processing and Obesity: A Preliminary Imaging Study of the Stop Signal Task. Obesity, 10, 1–7.

Joseph, R., Alonso-Alonso, M., Bond, D., Pascual-Leone, A., & Blackburn, G. (2011). The neurocognitive connection between physical activity and eating behaviour. Obesity Reviews, 12, 800–812.

Lezak, M. (1995). Neuropsychological assessment. New York: Oxford University Press.

Logan, G. D. (1994). In D. Dagenbach & T. Carr (Eds.), Inhibitory processes in attention, memory and language (pp. 189–239). San Diego: Academic.

Logan, G., Schachar, R., & Tannock, R. (1997). Impulsivity an inhibitory control. Psychological Science, 8, 60–64.CrossRef

Lopez, C., Tchanturia, K., Stahl, D., Booth, R., Holliday, J., & Treasure, J. (2007). An examination of the concept of central coherence in women with Anorexia Nervosa. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 41, 143–152.CrossRef

Maayan, L., Hoogendoorn, C., Sweat, V., & Convit, A. (2011). Disinhibited eating in obese adolescents is associated with orbitofrontal volume reductions and executive dysfunction. Obesity, 19, 1382–1387.PubMedCrossRef

Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: a latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.PubMedCrossRef

Mobbs, O., Iglesias, K., Golay, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2011). Cognitive deficits in obese persons with and without binge eating disorder: investigation using a mental flexibility task. Appetite, 57, 263–271.PubMedCrossRef

Morgan, A., & Lilienfeld, S. (2000). A meta-analytic review of the relationship between antisocial behaviour and neuropsychological measures of executive function. Clinical Psychology Review, 20(1), 113–136.PubMedCrossRef

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. (2006). Obesity: Guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children. CG043. London: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Nederkoorn, C., Smulders, F., Havermans, R., Roefs, A., & Jansen, A. (2006). Impulsivity in obese women. Appetite, 47(2), 253–256.PubMedCrossRef

Pender, S. (2011). The neuropsychology of starvation: Set-shifting, central coherence, perseveration, and persistence in a nonclinical sample. Unpublished clinical psychology doctoral thesis, Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, University College London.

Pierobon, A., Giardini, A., Fanfulla, F., Callegari, S., & Majani, G. (2008). A multidimensional assessment of obese patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS): a study of psychological, neuropsychological and clinical relationships in a disabling multifaceted disease. Sleep Medicine, 9(8), 882–889.PubMedCrossRef

Pignatti, R., Bertella, L., Albani, G., Mauro, A., Molinari, E., & Semenza, C. (2006). Decision-making in obesity: a study using the gambling task. Eating and Weight Disorders, 11(3), 126–132.PubMed

Reitan, R. (1958). Validity of the trail making test as an indicator of organic brain damage. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8, 271–276.

Shallice, T. (1982). Specific impairments of planning. Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society London B: Biological Sciences, 298, 199–209.CrossRef

Smith, P., Blumenthal, J., Babyak, M., Craighead, L., Welsh-Bohmer, K., Browndyke, J., et al. (2010). Effects of the dietary approaches to stop hypertension diet, exercise, and caloric restriction on neurocognition in overweight adults with high blood pressure. Hypertension, 55(6), 1331–1338.PubMedCrossRef

Spitznagel, M., Garcia, S., Miller, L., Strain, G., Devlin, M., Wing, R. et al. (2011). Cognitive Function Predicts Weight Loss Following Bariatric Surgery. Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, 20, 1–7.

Spreen, O., & Strauss, E. (1998). A Compendium of Neuropsychological Tests: Administration, Norms, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stuss, D. T., & Alexander, M. P. (2007). Is there a dysexecutive syndrome? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 362, 901–915.CrossRef

Svaldi, J., Brand, M., & Tuschen-Caffier, B. (2010). Decision-making impairments in women with binge eating disorder. Appetite, 54, 84–92.PubMedCrossRef

Trenerry, M. R., Crosson, B., DeBoe, J., & Leber, W. R. (1989). The stroop neuropsychological screening test. Odessa: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Van den Berg, E., Kloppenborg, R., Kessels, R., Kappelle, L., & Biessels, G. (2009). Type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia and obesity: a systematic comparison of their impact on cognition. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-Molecular Basis of Disease, 1792(5), 470–481.CrossRef

Van den Eynde, F., Guillaume, S., Broadbent, H., Stahl, D., Campbell, I., Schmidt, U. et al. (2011). Neurocognition in bulimic eating disorders: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 124, 120–140.

Verdejo-García, A., Pérez-Expósito, M., Schmidt-Río-Valle, J., Fernández-Serrano, M., Cruz, F., Pérez-García, M., et al. (2010). Selective alterations within executive functions in adolescents with excess weight. Obesity, 18, 1572–1578.PubMedCrossRef

Volkow, N., Wang, G., Telang, F., Fowler, J., Goldstein, R., Alia-Klein, N., et al. (2008). Inverse association between BMI and prefrontal metabolic activity in healthy adults. Obesity, 17(1), 60–65.PubMedCrossRef

Walsh, K. (1994). Neuropsychology: a clinical approach (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.

Wechsler, D. (1997). WAIS-III, WMS-III, technical manual. San Antonio: Psychological Corporation.

Weller, R. E., Cook, E. W., III, Avsar, K. B., & Cox, J. E. (2008). Obese women show greater delay discounting than healthy-weight women. Appetite, 51(3), 563–569.PubMedCrossRef

Wilson, B., Alderman, N., Burgess, P., Emslie, H., & Evans, J. (1996). Behavioral assessment of the dysexecutive syndrome. Oxford: Thames Valley Test Company.

World Health Organisation (WHO) (2011) Global Database on Body Mass Index. Retrieved December 4, 2011, from http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp

Zinzindohoue, F., Chevallier, J., Douard, R., Elian, N., Ferraz, J., Blanche, J., et al. (2003). Laparoscopic gastric banding: a minimally invasive surgical treatment for morbid obesity: prospective study of 500 consecutive patients. Annals of Surgery, 237(1), 1–9.PubMedCrossRef

Title: Systematic Review: Are Overweight and Obese Individuals Impaired on Behavioural Tasks of Executive Functioning?
Authors: Sian Fitzpatrick
Sam Gilbert
Lucy Serpell
Publication date: 01-06-2013
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Neuropsychology Review / Issue 2/2013
Print ISSN: 1040-7308
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6660
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11065-013-9224-7

ACC 2024 Congress

Springer Medicine

Systematic Review: Are Overweight and Obese Individuals Impaired on Behavioural Tasks of Executive Functioning?

Abstract

ACC 2024 Congress

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 2/2013

Autobiographical Memory, Self, and Stress-Related Psychiatric Disorders: Which Implications in Cancer Patients?

Is the Right Anterior Temporal Variant of Prosopagnosia a Form of ‘Associative Prosopagnosia’ or a Form of ‘Multimodal Person Recognition Disorder’?

Effects of Cannabis on Neurocognitive Functioning: Recent Advances, Neurodevelopmental Influences, and Sex Differences

What is Overt and what is Covert in Congenital Prosopagnosia?