Skałbania Jakub, Tanajewski Łukasz, Furtak Marcin, Rynkiewicz Andrzej, Wypych Marek
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Department of Economics, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland.
Department of Economics, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland.
Neuroscience. 2025 Mar 17;569:123-132. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2025.02.001. Epub 2025 Feb 3.
Recent studies have shown that cognitive overload disrupted the affective processing of taste attributes in food-related tasks, which is difficult to explain using dual-system theories with their reflective and impulsive systems (involved in the cognitive and affective processing of stimuli, respectively). The tripartite neurocognitive model proposes an additional interoceptive system that regulates the activities of reflective and impulsive systems. Using this framework, we studied self-control over food choices and hypothesized inferior processing of both affective (taste) and cognitive (health) components of choice-relevant attributes under increased cognitive load. We expected increased cognitive load to decrease the coupling between interoceptive and impulsive systems (represented by anterior insula (AI) and ventral striatum (VS), respectively), and to strengthen decoupling between interoceptive and reflective system (represented by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)). In an fMRI scanner, 49 participants made 60 food choices requiring self-control (i.e., between a healthier and tastier item) twice: in high (HL) and low working memory load (LL) conditions. We found that functional connectivity between the right AI and VS was weaker in HL compared to LL condition. We also revealed an expected trend towards a stronger negative connectivity between the right AI and DLPFC in HL compared to LL condition. Our findings suggest that cognitively demanding task concurrent to food self-control task overloads AI and reduces the reinforcement of VS by AI. This helps in explaining how and why the affective processing of taste attributes, together with the cognitive processing of health attributes, may be disrupted under cognitive overload.
最近的研究表明，认知过载会干扰与食物相关任务中味觉属性的情感加工，这很难用具有反思性和冲动性系统（分别参与刺激的认知和情感加工）的双系统理论来解释。三方神经认知模型提出了一个额外的内感受系统，该系统调节反思性和冲动性系统的活动。利用这个框架，我们研究了对食物选择的自我控制，并假设在认知负荷增加的情况下，与选择相关属性的情感（味觉）和认知（健康）成分的加工都会变差。我们预计认知负荷的增加会减少内感受系统和冲动性系统（分别以前脑岛（AI）和腹侧纹状体（VS）为代表）之间的耦合，并加强内感受系统和反思性系统（以背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）为代表）之间的解耦。在功能磁共振成像扫描仪中，49名参与者进行了60次需要自我控制的食物选择（即在更健康和更美味的食物之间进行选择），分两次进行：在高工作记忆负荷（HL）和低工作记忆负荷（LL）条件下。我们发现，与LL条件相比，HL条件下右侧AI和VS之间的功能连接较弱。我们还发现，与LL条件相比，HL条件下右侧AI和DLPFC之间的负连接有更强的预期趋势。我们的研究结果表明，与食物自我控制任务同时进行的高认知需求任务会使AI过载，并减少AI对VS的强化。这有助于解释在认知过载情况下，味觉属性的情感加工以及健康属性的认知加工是如何以及为何会受到干扰的。
