Research shows brain scans can predict weight gain and sexual
activity At a time when obesity has become epidemic in American
society, Dartmouth scientists have found that functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans may be able to
predict weight gain. In a study published April 18, 2012, in The
Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers demonstrated a
connection between fMRI brain responses to appetite-driven cues
and future behavior. “This is one of the first studies in brain
imaging that uses the responses observed in the scanner to
predict important, real-world outcomes over a long period of
time,” says Todd Heatherton, the Lincoln Filene Professor in
Human Relations in the department of psychological and brain
sciences and a coauthor on the study. “Using brain activity to
predict a consequential behavior outside the scanner is pretty
novel.” Using fMRI, the researchers targeted a region of the
brain known as the nucleus accumbens, often referred to as the
brain’s “reward center,” in a group of