Functional neuroimaging of gastric distention.

This study aimed to measure brain activation during gastric distention as a way to investigate short-term satiety. We estimated regional cerebral blood flow with positron emission tomography (15O-water) during gastric balloon inflation and deflation in 18 healthy young women. The contrast between inflated minus deflated conditions showed activation in the following four key regions that were identified a priori: dorsal brain stem; left inferior frontal gyrus; bilateral insula; and right subgenual, anterior cingulate cortex.