Frankort Astrid, Roefs Anne, Siep Nicolette, Roebroeck Alard, Havermans Remco, Jansen Anita
Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, Maastricht 6200 MD, The Netherlands.
Appetite. 2015 Apr;87:98-107. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2014.12.204. Epub 2014 Dec 17.
Previous studies have shown that one's brain response to high-calorie food cues can predict long-term weight gain or weight loss. The neural correlates that predict food intake in the short term have, however, hardly been investigated. This study examined which brain regions' activation predicts chocolate intake after participants had been either exposed to real chocolate or to control stimuli during approximately one hour, with interruptions for fMRI measurements. Further we investigated whether the variance in chocolate intake could be better explained by activated brain regions than by self-reported craving. In total, five brain regions correlated with subsequent chocolate intake. The activation of two reward regions (the right caudate and the left frontopolar cortex) correlated positively with intake in the exposure group. The activation of two regions associated with cognitive control (the left dorsolateral and left mid-dorsolateral PFC) correlated negatively with intake in the control group. When the regression analysis was conducted with the exposure and the control group together, an additional region's activation (the right anterior PFC) correlated positively with chocolate intake. In all analyses, the intake variance explained by neural correlates was above and beyond the variance explained by self-reported craving. These results are in line with neuroimaging research showing that brain responses are a better predictor of subsequent intake than self-reported craving. Therefore, our findings might provide for a missing link by associating brain activation, previously shown to predict weight change, with short-term intake.
先前的研究表明，一个人对高热量食物线索的大脑反应可以预测长期的体重增加或减轻。然而，预测短期食物摄入量的神经关联几乎未被研究过。本研究考察了在参与者大约一小时内接触真巧克力或对照刺激物（期间有中断以进行功能磁共振成像测量）后，哪些脑区的激活能预测巧克力摄入量。此外，我们还研究了与自我报告的渴望相比，激活的脑区是否能更好地解释巧克力摄入量的差异。总共五个脑区与随后的巧克力摄入量相关。两个奖赏区域（右侧尾状核和左侧额极皮层）的激活与暴露组的摄入量呈正相关。与认知控制相关的两个区域（左侧背外侧前额叶皮层和左侧中背外侧前额叶皮层）的激活与对照组的摄入量呈负相关。当对暴露组和对照组一起进行回归分析时，另一个区域（右侧前额叶前部）的激活与巧克力摄入量呈正相关。在所有分析中，神经关联所解释的摄入量差异超过了自我报告的渴望所解释的差异。这些结果与神经影像学研究一致，表明大脑反应比自我报告的渴望更能预测随后的摄入量。因此，我们的发现可能通过将先前显示能预测体重变化的大脑激活与短期摄入量联系起来，提供了一个缺失的环节。
