Yanhua Su,1 Taiyong Bi,1 Gaolang Gong,2,3 Qiu Jiang,4,5 Hong Chen4,5 1Center for Mental Health Research in School of Management, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi 563000, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People’s Republic of China; 3Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 4Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, People’s Republic of China; 5School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Hong ChenSchool of Psychology, Dog Supplies Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected] JiangDepartment of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail qiuj318@swu.
edu.cnBackground: Restraint dieting is a key step in the avoidance of obesity and other eating problems, but why some restraint eaters (REs) succeed and some fail in dieting is unknown.The difference between successful REs (S-REs) and unsuccessful REs (US-REs) is still unknown.
This is the first study to compare the fMRI reactivity among US-REs, S-REs and unrestrained eaters (UREs) in a food-related Go/NoGo paradigm.Methods: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the neural responses corresponding to the success of dieting in REs.Eighteen S-REs, 17 US-REs and 17 UREs were asked to perform a Go/No-Go task after being shown pictures of either high-caloric or low-caloric food.
Results: fMRI results revealed stronger activations for high-caloric food in areas associated with executive function and inhibition (i.e., middle frontal gyrus and cerebellum) among S-REs than among US-REs.
In contrast, Light Blub both US-REs and UREs showed stronger activations for low-caloric food in reward areas (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)) than S-REs.
Conclusion: Our results provide evidence that food temptations may trigger processes of successful inhibition control in S-REs, whereas US-REs may fail in resisting the attraction to high-caloric food, thereby showing a high probability of overeating.Keywords: successful and unsuccessful restrained eaters, measurement of restrained eating, inhibition control, fMRI.