Authors
Gagnon, P., Lachance, A., Pelletier, M., Legault, M., Ross, S.-K., Iceta, S., Biertho, L., Julien, F., Begin, C., Dagher, A., Tchernof, A., Zeighami, Y., Michaud, A.
Abstract
Objective: To examine changes in the neural valuation of high- versus low-calorie stimuli following bariatric surgery and determine whether these changes relate to weight loss at 24 months. Methods: Adults undergoing bariatric surgery completed fMRI scans before surgery and at 4, 12 and 24 months post-surgery while performing the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction task to assess willingness-to-pay (WTP) for food stimuli. Linear mixed-effect models tested longitudinal changes in WTP-related blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) associations and their interactions with total weight loss at 24 months. Results: WTP for high-calorie foods decreased significantly after surgery, whereas valuation of low-calorie foods remained stable. At 4 months, WTP-BOLD associations for high- versus low-calorie stimuli were enhanced within the frontoparietal control network and right lateral orbitofrontal cortex relative to pre-surgery. These early postoperative changes did not correlate with 24-month weight loss. Instead, greater 24-month weight loss correlated with both pre-surgical and long-term changes (24 months versus pre-surgery) in WTP-BOLD associations within the precuneus, inferior parietal cortex and visual cortex. Conclusion: Bariatric surgery induces early reductions in the valuation of high-calorie foods, potentially through enhanced cognitive control and aversive processing. However, long-term weight-loss success appears more strongly related to trait-like neural differences in self-referential and attentional processing.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 25 Aug 2026.
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