Neural Substrates of Emotional Eating

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary aim of the proposed study is to investigate key assumptions of the Affect Regulation Model of binge eating using brain imaging techniques to examine neural substrates that may explain why emotional eaters binge eat. A preliminary fMRI study suggested that emotional eaters experience greater wanting (craving) for food when in a negative mood state than non-emotional eaters (as indexed by greater activation of the anterior cingulate), but the study did not have consistent findings for the effect of mood and emotional eating on liking food (hedonics). In the proposed follow-up study, 50 female college students who score in the top or bottom quartiles of an emotional eating scale will participate in a paradigm designed to assess wanting and liking of food. In this fMRI paradigm, participants are told that particular pictures signal the impending delivery of chocolate milkshake or a tasteless control solution, but the flavors are not always actually delivered, which permits an examination of brain activation in response to anticipated and actual receipt of the milkshake. Participants will complete this task in a negative and neutral mood (order counterbalanced), to test the hypotheses that wanting and liking differences between groups are more pronounced in the latter. They will also complete the task after moderate caloric deprivation or after consumption of a standardized meal (order counterbalanced), to test the hypothesis that differences in wanting and liking between groups may be more pronounced under conditions of satiety (as food deprivation may induce a ceiling effect for wanting and liking). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding the neural basis for emotional eating, a risk factor for bulimia nervosa, binge eating, and obesity, may have important implications for etiologic models, and the development of more effective prevention and treatment interventions for these pernicious problems.