Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), a clustering of risk factors for type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease, has been associated with cognitive dysfunction and brain abnormalities. This review describes the literature on the impact of MetS on brain and cognition and suggests directions for future research. A literature search for reports of MetS and cognition and brain imaging was conducted for both non-elderly adults and adolescents. No studies were found describing MetS and brain or cognition among adolescents; therefore we also included studies investigating individual components of MetS in this age group. Most studies found associations between MetS and cognitive dysfunction. Multiple cognitive domains were affected by MetS in adults. In adolescents, the majority of findings were in executive functioning. Brain imaging literature in adults implicated MetS in ischemic stroke, white matter alterations and altered brain metabolism. For adolescents, individual MetS factors were linked to volume losses in the hippocampus and frontal lobes. MetS negatively impacts cognitive performance and brain structure. Potential explanatory models include impaired vascular reactivity, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and abnormal brain lipid metabolism. We posit that insulin resistance-associated impairment in cerebrovascular reactivity is an important mechanism underlying brain deficits seen in MetS.

Clinicians were significantly more accurate than chance in prospectively predicting which male forensic patients would show assaultive behavior. However, some of the factors associated with clinical prediction, such as race, ability to follow ward routine, and arrest history, were not associated with actual assaultive behavior. In addition, clinicians failed to use dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and substance use disorder as a predictor.

ObjectivesObesity is on the rise in the US and is linked to the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Emerging evidence over the last decade suggests that obesity may also adversely affect executive function and brain structure. Although a great deal of research focuses on how diet affects the brain and cognitive performance, no study focuses on how food choice may be associated with brain integrity. Here we investigated how lean and overweight/obese (o/o) adults differed in their food choices and how brain structure and cognition may be associated with those choices.DesignAs part of an ongoing study on diabetes and the brain, participants had routine blood work and a research MRI, received a battery of neurocognitive tests, and were instructed to keep a 3-day food diary.Results and conclusionsThe lean group ate more high quality foods and less low quality foods compared to the o/o group. In the o/o group, high quality food choices were associated with orbitofrontal cortex volume. The lean group performed better than the o/o group on neurocognitive measures of executive function, such as the Stroop Interference Test, the Wisconsin Card Sort Test and the Trail Making Test B-A, and on attention and concentration tasks such as the Digit Symbol Substitution Test. Taken together, these preliminary data suggest that in obesity poor food choices may be associated with frontal cognitive impairments that may be the result of, or contribute to, decreases in orbitofrontal cortex volume. Therefore, longitudinal studies are warranted to investigate a causal link between food choice and executive functioning.