The association of childhood obesity to neuroelectric indices of inhibition KEITA KAMIJO, a MATTHEW B. PONTIFEX, b NAIMAN A. KHAN, c LAUREN B. RAINE, a MARK R. SCUDDER, a ERIC S. DROLLETTE, a ELLEN M. EVANS, d DARLA M. CASTELLI, e and CHARLES H. HILLMAN a a Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA b Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA c Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA d Department of Kinesiology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA e Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA Abstract To examine whether childhood obesity is associated with inhibitory control, we compared healthy weight and obese preadolescent children’s task performance along with the N2 and P3 components during a Go/NoGo task. Results indicated that obese children exhibited lower response accuracy relative to healthy weight children during the NoGo task requiring greater amounts of inhibitory control, whereas no such difference was observed during the Go task. Neuro- electric data indicated that healthy weight children exhibited a more frontal distribution for the NoGo P3 relative to the Go P3, whereas obese children had similar topographic distributions between the Go P3 and NoGo P3. Further, obese children had larger NoGo N2 amplitude relative to the Go N2, whereas this difference was not observed for healthy weight children. These findings suggest that childhood obesity is negatively and selectively associated with prefrontal inhibitory control. Descriptors: Childhood obesity, Inhibitory control, N2, P3, Go/NoGo The epidemic of childhood obesity has become a worldwide public health concern (Ebbeling, Pawlak, & Ludwig, 2002; Swinburn et al., 2011), and approximately one fifth of preadolescent children now are considered obese in the United States (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2012). It has been well established that obesity is a major contributor to chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardio- vascular disease not only for adults but also for children (Ebbeling et al., 2002). Recent studies have indicated that weight status is also negatively associated with academic achievement (Datar & Sturm, 2006; Donnelly et al., 2009; Hollar, Lombardo et al., 2010; Hollar, Messiah et al., 2010) and cognitive function in children (Kamijo et al., in press; Li, Dai, Jackson, & Zhang, 2008; Lokken, Boeka, Austin, Gunstad, & Harmon, 2009), suggesting that maintaining a healthy weight may be essential for healthy brain maturation and cognitive development during childhood. Childhood Obesity and Inhibitory Control Several longitudinal studies have indicated that school-based obesity prevention interventions including nutrition and physical activity programs can enhance appropriate weight gain during growth and improve academic achievement (Donnelly et al., 2009; Hollar, Lombardo et al., 2010; Hollar, Messiah et al., 2010). Further, recent cross-sectional studies have shown that weight status is negatively associated with cognitive performance during tasks requiring the upregulation of cognitive control (Kamijo et al., in press; Li et al., 2008; Lokken et al., 2009). Cognitive control describes a subset of goal-directed, self-regulatory operations that encompass the selection, scheduling, and coordination of compu- tational processes underlying perception, memory, and action (Meyer & Kieras, 1997; Norman & Shallice, 1986), with inhibi- tion, cognitive flexibility, and working memory thought to com- prise core processes underlying such abilities (Diamond, 2006). Given that these aspects of cognition have been implicated in academic achievement (Agostino, Johnson, & Pascual-Leone, 2010; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006), the negative asso- ciation between weight status and cognitive control (Kamijo et al., in press; Li et al., 2008; Lokken et al., 2009) is consistent with findings of longitudinal studies indicating that higher body mass index (BMI) is associated with lower academic achievement scores (Datar & Sturm, 2006; Donnelly et al., 2009; Hollar, Lombardo et al., 2010; Hollar, Messiah et al., 2010). Interestingly, recent studies have observed that cognitive control ability can predict future weight status. Graziano, Calkins, and Keane (2010) found that poorer inhibitory control, which is one aspect of cognitive control, in 2-year-old children predicted obesity/overweight status in 5.5-year-old children. A magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that smaller gray matter volume in brain regions associated with inhibitory control, such as the Support for our research and the preparation of this manuscript were provided by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD R01 HD055352) to Charles Hillman. Address correspondence to: Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D., 317 Louise Freer Hall, 906 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: chhillma@illinois.edu Psychophysiology, 49 (2012), 1361–1371. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 2012 Society for Psychophysiological Research DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01459.x 1361