Torske Alyssa, Schicker Doris, Freiherr Jessica, Koch Kathrin
School of Medicine and Health, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
TUM-Neuroimaging Center (TUM-NIC), Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 25;15(1):14479. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-90172-3.
Modern societies and their obesogenic environments expose individuals to persistent food stimulation. This frequent exposure can cause sensory systems to habituate or desensitize to food-related sensory stimulation. This can, in turn, lead to the reduction of pleasure associated with eating, which can elicit overeating behavior to attain the desired pleasurable effect. However, frequently engaging in overeating behavior can lead to excessive weight gain, which is associated with the development of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. Mindfulness training could serve as a tool to reduce the habituation response elicited by frequent food exposure while promoting mindful eating, emotion regulation, and reducing overeating behavior. To investigate this, the present study was registered as a clinical trial on the ISRCTN registry: trial ID ISRCTN12901054. In the study, meditation-naïve individuals with a tendency to stress-eat (N = 56) participated in either a 31-day, web-based, food-related mindfulness training or health training condition. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral data were acquired before and after the intervention. During the fMRI sessions, hungry and stressed participants were exposed to visual and olfactory high-calorie food stimuli. The results indicate that hunger and stress ratings increased in both groups during the fMRI sessions but that mindfulness training, in comparison to health training, may significantly reduce the habituation response to food stimuli. Our results demonstrate that the habituation response could be implicated through the increase of neural activity in brain regions involved in visual and olfactory processing as well as emotion regulation. This study, therefore, demonstrates that mindfulness training could improve the ability to attend to food stimuli, which may enhance the pleasurable experience of eating, thereby diminishing an individual's tendency to engage in overeating behavior.
现代社会及其致胖环境使个体持续受到食物刺激。这种频繁的接触会导致感觉系统对与食物相关的感官刺激产生习惯化或脱敏。这反过来又会导致与进食相关的愉悦感降低，从而引发暴饮暴食行为以获得期望的愉悦效果。然而，频繁进行暴饮暴食行为会导致体重过度增加，这与代谢和心血管疾病的发展有关。正念训练可以作为一种工具，减少频繁接触食物所引发的习惯化反应，同时促进正念饮食、情绪调节并减少暴饮暴食行为。为了对此进行研究，本研究在国际标准随机对照试验编号注册中心（ISRCTN registry）注册为一项临床试验：试验编号ISRCTN12901054。在该研究中，有压力性进食倾向的未进行过冥想的个体（N = 56）参与了为期31天的基于网络的与食物相关的正念训练或健康训练。在干预前后获取功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和行为数据。在fMRI实验过程中，饥饿且有压力的参与者会接触视觉和嗅觉上的高热量食物刺激。结果表明，在fMRI实验过程中两组的饥饿和压力评分均有所增加，但与健康训练相比，正念训练可能会显著降低对食物刺激的习惯化反应。我们的结果表明，习惯化反应可能通过参与视觉和嗅觉处理以及情绪调节的脑区神经活动增加而产生。因此，本研究表明正念训练可以提高对食物刺激的关注能力，这可能会增强进食的愉悦体验，从而减少个体暴饮暴食行为的倾向。
