Department of Sports Medicine, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-4-3 Asahimachi, Abeno-ku, Osaka, 545-8585, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 15;8(1):3119. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21383-0.
Obesity is a major public health problem in modern society. Appetitive behavior has been proposed to be partially driven by unconscious decision-making processes and thus, targeting the unconscious cognitive processes related to eating behavior is essential to develop strategies for overweight individuals and obese patients. Here, we presented food pictures below the threshold of awareness to healthy male volunteers and examined neural activity related to appetitive behavior using magnetoencephalography. We found that, among participants who did not recognize food pictures during the experiment, an index of heart rate variability assessed by electrocardiography (low-frequency component power/high-frequency component power ratio, LF/HF) just after picture presentation was increased compared with that just before presentation, and the increase in LF/HF was negatively associated with the score for cognitive restraint of food intake. In addition, increased LF/HF was negatively associated with increased alpha band power in Brodmann area (BA) 47 caused by food pictures presented below the threshold of awareness, and level of cognitive restraint was positively associated with increased alpha band power in BA13. Our findings may provide valuable clues to the development of methods assessing unconscious regulation of appetite and offer avenues for further study of the neural mechanisms related to eating behavior.
肥胖是现代社会的一个主要公共卫生问题。食欲行为部分是由无意识的决策过程驱动的，因此，针对与饮食行为相关的无意识认知过程对于超重个体和肥胖患者的策略开发至关重要。在这里，我们向健康男性志愿者呈现低于意识阈限的食物图片，并使用脑磁图（MEG）检查与食欲行为相关的神经活动。我们发现，在实验过程中没有识别出食物图片的参与者中，与图片呈现之前相比，在图片呈现之后评估的心电图（低频成分功率/高频成分功率比，LF/HF）的心率变异性指数增加，LF/HF 的增加与认知性食物摄入抑制的评分呈负相关。此外，LF/HF 的增加与由阈下呈现的食物图片引起的布罗德曼区（BA）47 中的 alpha 波段功率增加呈负相关，而认知抑制水平与 BA13 中的 alpha 波段功率增加呈正相关。我们的研究结果可能为评估无意识食欲调节的方法的开发提供有价值的线索，并为与饮食行为相关的神经机制的进一步研究提供途径。
