REVIEW article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Perception Science
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1654559
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Convergence of Cognitive Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence: Unraveling the Mysteries of Emotion, Perception, and Human CognitionView all 7 articles
Affective-cognitive circuits in postoperative appetite reduction: An adaptive neuroimmune response to surgical stress
Provisionally accepted
- 1Yunnan University, Kunming, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
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Postoperative reduction in appetite perception, conceptualized as an interplay between emotion, perception, and cognition, may lead to adverse nutritional outcomes. However, an increasing body of research suggests that it may serve as an adaptive mechanism to inhibit inflammatory responses and regulate metabolic burden. This review comprehensively summarizes the multifaceted mechanisms underlying postoperative changes in appetite perception, particularly from the perspectives of immune regulation, inflammatory suppression, and metabolic reprogramming. Special attention is paid to the affective and cognitive dimensions of appetite perception, exploring how emotion-related processing and neurocognitive feedback contribute to appetite perception suppression during recovery. Moreover, this review highlights the clinical significance of these affective-perceptual changes in postoperative nutritional management, emphasizing the need to integrate psychological, perceptual, and neuroimmune factors into patient care strategies. Ultimately, the article explores the potential role of postoperative appetite perception reduction in modulating insulin sensitivity and improving systemic metabolic health. Based on current literature, we advocate for reevaluating appetite perception dynamics during recovery to provide novel theoretical foundations and practical directions for targeted postoperative nutritional interventions.
Keywords: Neuroinflammation, appetite perception, inflammatory responses, postoperative, neuroimmune factors
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Bao, Cen, Sun and Fu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Feng Sun, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
Lin Fu, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
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