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bioRxiv · 10.1101/693754

Effects of distraction on taste-related neural processing

Duif, I.·Wegman, J. B.·Mars, M. M.·de Graaf, K.·Smeets, P. A.·Aarts, E.
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Abstract

Distracted eating is associated with increased food intake and overweight. However, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are unknown. To elucidate these mechanisms, 41 healthy normal-weight participants received sips of high- and low-sweet isocaloric chocolate milk, while performing a high- or low-distracting detection task during fMRI on two test days. Subsequently, we measured ad libitum food intake. As expected, a region in the primary taste cortex - located in the insula - responded more to the sweeter drink. Distraction did not affect this right insula sweetness response across the group, but did weaken sweetness-related connectivity of this region to a secondary taste region in the right orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, distraction-related attenuation of taste processing in the insula predicted increased subsequent ad libitum food intake after distraction between subjects. These results reveal a previously unknown mechanism explaining how distraction during consumption attenuates neural taste processing and increases food intake. The study was preregistered at https://osf.io/vxdhg/register/5771ca429ad5a1020de2872e?view_only=e3207cd6567f41f0a1505e343a64b5aa.

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Duif, I., Wegman, J. B., Mars, M. M., de Graaf, K., Smeets, P. A., Aarts, E.. 2019-07-05. Effects of distraction on taste-related neural processing. https://doi.org/10.1101/693754

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