The role of hunger state and dieting history in neural response to food cues: An event-related potential study

Prepregnancy dieting and obstetrical and neonatal outcomes: Findings from a national surveillance project in the United States

PROBLEM AND BACKGROUND

Women with overweight or obesity are recommended to lose weight before pregnancy. Dieting is one of the most used weight control strategies. However, the health implications of dieting before pregnancy remain unclear.

AIM

To evaluate the associations of dieting during the year before pregnancy with obstetrical and neonatal outcomes, including gestational weight gain (GWG), gestational diabetes, low birthweight, macrosomia, small-for-gestational-age infants (SGA), large-for-gestational-age infants (LGA), and preterm birth.

METHODS

This study analyzed data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), which is a surveillance project in the United States that collects data on maternal health before, during, and after pregnancy. Women who participated in PRAMS phase 7 with a prepregnancy body mass index ≥25 kg/m2 and a singleton birth were eligible. Statistical analyses included logistic regressions and post-hoc mediation analysis (Sobel Test).

FINDINGS

A total number of 51,399 women were included in the analysis. Women who self-reported prepregnancy dieting (42.8 %) had lower odds of SGA (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.87; 95 % CI: 0.79-0.97), and higher odds of excessive GWG vs adequate GWG (aOR: 1.42; 95 % CI: 1.32-1.52), gestational diabetes (aOR: 1.12; 95 % CI: 1.02-1.22), and LGA (aOR: 1.18; 95 % CI: 1.08-1.28). Furthermore, the association between prepregnancy dieting and LGA was mediated by excessive GWG (Sobel Test z-value = 5.72, p < 0.01).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This analysis revealed that prepregnancy dieting was associated with several adverse consequences, including excessive GWG, gestational diabetes, and LGA infants. Findings contribute to an improved understanding of the perinatal implications of prepregnancy dieting.

A novel wearable ERP-based BCI approach to explicate hunger necessity

This study aimed to design a Brain-Computer Interface system to detect people's hunger status. EEG signals were recorded in various scenarios to create a database. We extracted the time-domain and frequency-domain features from these signals and applied them to the inputs of various Machine Learning algorithms. We compared the classification performances and reached the best-performing algorithm. The highest success score of 97.62% was achieved using the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network algorithm in Event-Related Potential analysis.

Food cue reward salience does not explain Hyperphagia in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is characterized by hyperphagia, an extreme and persistent hunger that emerges in early childhood. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to objectively investigate brain responses to low- and high-calorie foods, animals, and household objects in 20 satiated adolescents with PWS. Late Positive Potential (LPP) responses to food images did not differ from non-food images. Rather, we observed larger ERPs to high-calorie foods relative to animal images (p=.001) in an earlier time window. These responses correlated with greater severity of hyperphagia (p = .01). Thus, hyperphagia associated with PWS may be due to altered satiety regulation rather than increased motivational salience.

Impact of textual warnings on emotional brain responses to ultra-processed food products

Background and objectives

Ultra-processed food products (UPF) have been associated with numerous non-communicable diseases. Despite this, the addictive nature of UPF, and the aggressive marketing strategies used to promote them, has created a strong emotional connection between UPF and consumers, and supports their increasing UPF global consumption. In view of the emotional link that consumers often have with UPF, modulating emotional reactions to UPF (by using strategies such as textual warnings) is important in changing consumers' behavior. Since emotions are better understood by assessing individuals' implicit reactions, we conducted an electroencephalographic study applying the event-related potential technique to investigate whether textual warnings were able to modulate the brain responses to UPF stimuli.

Materials and methods

Twenty-six participants (19 women) viewed pictures of UPF preceded by a warning sentence about the health risks of consuming UPF or a control sentence while the electroencephalogram was recorded. In addition, the participants rated the picture in respect of pleasantness, arousal, and intention to consume. As emotions are associated with motivational circuits in the brain, we focused on a well-known event-related potential brain marker of the motivational relevance associated with emotional stimuli, namely late positive potential (LPP).

Results

The late positive potential amplitude was larger for pictures depicting UPF under the warning condition compared to the control condition, a result that was accompanied by lower pleasantness ratings during the warning condition (compared to the control).

Conclusion

Textual warnings about the negative health consequences of consuming UPF changed the emotional responses toward UPF, possibly increasing the motivation to avoid UPF. These results shed new light on the impact of textual warnings on UPF-evoked emotions.

The effects of daily step goals of 10,000, 12,500, and 15,000 steps per day on neural activity to food cues: A 24-week dose-response randomized trial

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of different levels of sustained physical activity on neural reflections of attention allocated toward food cues in first year college women.

METHODS

Seventy-nine first-year college women (18.6 ± 0.5 years) were recruited to participate in the study. Women were randomly assigned to a daily step goal of 10,000, 12,500, or 15,000 for 24 weeks. Once during weeks 16-24, participants were shown pictures of plated meals or flowers with the neural response measured using the P300 and late positive potential (LPP) components of the scalp-recorded event-related potential. Diet was assessed using the automated 24-h recall.

RESULTS

Both the P300 and LPP amplitudes were significantly more positive to food versus flower pictures (ps < .001). There was no interaction between step group and picture condition for the P300 and LPP. However, the 12,500-step group showed a significantly elevated LPP amplitude in comparison to the other groups for both food and flowers (F(2,74) = 8.84; p < .001). The effect size for the combined results (food and flowers) was 0.56 between 10,000 and 12,500-step groups, and 0.75 between the 12,500- and 15,000-step groups. In addition, the 12,500 group reduced caloric consumption over the course of the intervention (t(1,74) = 3.35, p = .001, d_z  = 0.59).

CONCLUSION

Habitual physical activity of 10,000, 12,500, or 15,000 steps per day does not preferentially alter neural reflections toward food cues compared to flowers. There may be a nonlinear response to pleasant visual cues, with 12,500 steps per day eliciting higher LPPs than either 10,000 or 15,000.

Using event-related potentials to study food-related cognition: An overview of methods and perspectives for future research

Electroencephalography (EEG), and the measure of event-related potentials (ERPs) in particular, are useful methods to study the cognitive and cerebral mechanisms underlying the perception and processing of food cues. Further research on these aspects is necessary to better understand how cognitive functioning may influence food choices in different populations (e.g. obese individuals, individuals with eating disorders). To help researchers in designing future studies, this article provides an overview of the methods used in the current literature on ERPs and food-related cognition. Several methodological aspects are explored to outline interesting perspectives for future research, including discussions on the main experimental tasks used, the cognitive functions assessed (e.g. inhibitory control, attentional processing), the characteristics of the participants recruited (e.g. weight status, eating behaviors), and the stimuli selected (e.g. food pictures, odors). The issues generated by some of these methodological choices are discussed, and a few guidelines are provided.

Visual food cue processing in children with Prader-Willi Syndrome

Hyperphagia and the associated interest in food is a characteristic feature of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) that emerges during childhood and remains a life-long concern. This study examined neural responses reflecting food cue salience in children with PWS and typical controls, age 3-12 years. Visual event-related potentials were recorded while participants in satiated state passively viewed photographs of high- and low-calorie foods, animals, and neutral objects. Contrary to the prediction, children with PWS did not demonstrate greater than typical neural responses to food, suggesting that it is not an exceptionally motivationally salient stimulus in PWS. Caregiver reports of greater hyperphagia were associated with neural responses to low-calorie foods suggesting accelerated and more fine-grained visual stimulus categorization in terms of edibility and caloric content. Overall, the findings align more closely with the altered satiety rather than increased food reward models of hyperphagia in PWS.

Food cue-elicited brain potentials change throughout menstrual cycle: Modulation by eating styles, negative affect, and premenstrual complaints

BACKGROUND

While there is evidence for increased food intake and craving during the luteal phase, underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. The present study investigated electrophysiological responses to food pictures as a function of menstrual cycle phase. In addition, the moderating effects of progesterone, eating behaviors (restraint, emotional, orthorexic), negative affect, and premenstrual complaints were explored.

METHODS

Using a within-subject design, 35 free-cycling women watched and rated pictures of food (high and low caloric) and control items during the follicular, the ovulatory, and the luteal phase (counterbalanced), while EEG was recorded to examine the late positive potentials (LPP). Salivary gonadal hormones and affect were examined at each occasion. Eating behaviors and premenstrual complaints were assessed once.

RESULTS

For parietal regions, average LPPs were comparable between cycle phases but slightly larger LPP amplitudes were elicited by high caloric food pictures as compared to the neutral category. Descriptively, both food categories elicited larger parietal LPPs than neutral pictures during the luteal phase. Analyses of LPPs for central-parietal regions showed no effect of picture category or cycle phase, except higher amplitudes in the right area during the luteal phase. During the luteal phase, progesterone and functional interference from premenstrual symptoms (but not age, BMI, picture ratings, affect, estradiol, or eating behaviors) significantly predicted larger parietal LPPs towards high caloric (but not low caloric) pictures.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest a heightened food cue reactivity during the luteal phase, which may relate to higher ovarian hormone secretion and more functional impact of premenstrual symptoms. This research contributes to a better understanding of menstrual health and the identification of preventive strategies for premenopausal women.

ERP correlates of cognitive control and food-related processing in normal weight and severely obese candidates for bariatric surgery: Data gathered using a newly designed Simon task

Although there have been suggestions that altered cognitive control and food reward sensitivity contribute to overeating in obese individuals, neurophysiological correlates of these mechanisms have been poorly investigated. The current study investigated event-related potentials (ERP) in 24 severely obese and 26 normal weight individuals in fasting condition, using a novel Simon task with food and object distractors. The study showed that conflict in the Simon task for the food distractor increased with hunger in both groups but was larger with respect to a neutral condition only in the obese individuals. ERP showed higher N1amplitudes in both groups for food distractor, reflecting early food processing. The P2 latency was delayed and the effect of distractors on N2 amplitude was smaller in the obese subjects, reflecting altered neural mechanisms associated with selective attention and cognitive control, all contributing hypothetically to delay response selection of these individuals faced with food distractor.