Neural correlates underlying preference changes induced by food Go/No-Go training

Abstract

Consistently not responding to appetitive foods during food go/no-go training could change individuals' food choices and sometimes even body weight, however, fewer studies have explored the neural pathways underlying the effects of food go/no-go training. In this study, we scanned eighty-six female participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging and investigated the neural bases of preference changes in a binary food choice task following action (e.g., go) or inaction (e.g., no-go) toward distinct foods within a food go/no-go training paradigm. In line with prior behavioral work, we found that participants' food preferences changed as a function of food go/no-go training, with participants choosing more "go" over "no-go" foods for consumption following training. At a neural level, preference changes were inversely associated with frontoparietal and salience network activity when choosing go (vs. no-go) foods. Additionally, task-related functional connectivities from the inferior parietal lobule to the pre-supplementary motor cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex were related to these preference changes. Together, current work supports that food go/no-go training reliably changes people's preferences. More importantly, our findings suggest that a neural pathway centered on areas traditionally associated with selective attention may interface with prefrontal regions to guide preference changes induced by food go/no-go training, though future studies using other tasks (e.g., passive viewing tasks) are still needed to test this potential neural mechanism.

Keywords: Behavioral intervention; Eating behaviors; Food go/no-go training; Functional connectivity; Neural mechanism; Preference change.