Association of central serotonin transporter availability and body mass index in healthy Europeans

Serotonin-mediated mechanisms, in particular via the serotonin transporter (SERT), are thought to have an effect on food intake and play an important role in the pathophysiology of obesity. However, imaging studies that examined the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and SERT are sparse and provided contradictory results. The aim of this study was to further test the association between SERT and BMI in a large cohort of healthy subjects. Methods: 127 subjects of the ENC DAT database (58 females, age 52±18 years, range 20-83, BMI 25.2±3.8 kg/m2, range 18.2-41.1) were analysed using region-of-interest (ROI) and voxel-based approaches to calculate [123I]FP-CIT specific-to-nonspecific binding ratios (SBR) in the hypothalamus/thalamus and midbrain/brainstem as SERT-specific target regions. Results: In the voxel-based analysis, SERT availability and BMI were positively associated in the thalamus, but not in the midbrain. In the ROI-analysis, the interaction between gender and BMI showed a trend with higher correlation coefficient for men in the midbrain albeit not significant (0.033 SBR m2/kg, p=0.1). Conclusions: The data are in agreement with previous PET findings of an altered central serotonergic tone depending on BMI, as a probable pathophysiologic mechanism in obesity, and should encourage further clinical studies in obesity targeting the serotonergic system.