Brain Electrophysiological Patterns in Obesity

There is growing evidence of behavioural and neurobiological overlaps between obesity and drug abuse. Reduction of the amplitude of P300, a component of event-related potentials (ERP) elicited by an oddball paradigm, is an electrophysiological characteristic and a marker of vulnerability in substance abuse. We want to determine whether obesity is associated with such electrophysiological features during an auditory oddball paradigm. We postulate that obesity could be associated with electrophysiological abnormalities that could be viewed as a possible vulnerability marker for food addiction.