The Effect of Mindful Eating Training on Midbrain and Striatal BOLD-responses to Reward Cues
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2015-07-31
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en
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Obesity has reached pandemic proportions, resulting in major negative consequences for people’s health. Obesity results from a positive energy balance between food intake and energy expenditure. A promising method to counteract the act of overeating is mindfulness training. In this randomized active-controlled experimental study it was investigated, for the first time, whether mindful eating training affects food-related neural reward mechanisms. More specifically, the study investigated whether mindful eating training decreases reward anticipation in striatal and midbrain reward regions either specifically to rewarding food cues or to reward cues in general. 61 Participants performed an incentive delay task with food and monetary trials during 3T fMRI scanning before and after 8 weeks of mindful eating or active-control training (educational cooking training). Results revealed decreased food-specific reward anticipation for midbrain but not striatum after mindful eating training. These results were not obtained for the active-control group, indicating a specific mindful eating training effect. The results suggest that mindful eating training decreases the rewarding value of food cues, which could result in decreased food-cue triggered overeating readily observed in the context of obesity.
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen