Brain and hormonal alterations of early trauma linked to binge-like eating
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Binge eating is a common condition that increases the risk of obesity and metabolic diseases, yet its neurobiological roots remain poorly understood. Here, we show that adolescent trauma combined with intermittent access to a high-fat diet induces binge-like episodes in rats, with females showing greater susceptibility. Ultrahigh-resolution diffusion MRI revealed a widespread brain signature involving homeostatic, reward, emotional, cognitive, sensory, and autonomic networks in both sexes. Within this distributed pattern, changes in hippocampal subfields and their efferent tracts emerged as a key focus, with exploratory analyses further implicating hippocampal–hypothalamic pathways as sex-specific factors contributing to binge-eating vulnerability. Structural modifications were linked to binge-like behavior and sex-dependent shifts in stress and reproductive hormone profiles, with both sexes experiencing disruption but through different neuroendocrine pathways. These findings suggest that early trauma broadly impacts brain and hormone systems in both sexes, but in different ways that raise vulnerability to binge eating, highlighting both shared and sex-specific risk pathways.
