| Popis: |
Problem: Excessive food intake is one of the leading causes of weight gain and obesity, a major public health problem. Food consumption is an essential behavior that is critical in meeting our physiological needs. However, this behavior can shift from meeting our energy requirements to providing energy beyond our body's daily need, which is known as hedonic hyperphagia (overeating). Many factors can promote overeating including the abundance of palatable foods in the environment, impaired activity in areas of the brain responsible for promoting inhibition of behavior, or increased activity in areas of the brain that promote stimulation of behavior toward the abundantly available palatable food. Cognitive restraint is a psychological construct that involves the monitoring of food intake in order to prevent weight gain. It is proposed to have a moderating effect on food intake which may result in lower food intake. There are different proposed methods for understanding the intake limiting effect of cognitive restraint. However, little information is known about the mechanism of cognitive restraint interaction with brain activity in response to food intake. The primary aim of this study was to assess the effect of shifting attention away from food being eaten toward another food-related stimulus on relative changes from baseline in oxygenated hemoglobin activity within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) in women who are cognitively restrained (CR), vs. non-cognitively restrained (NCR). The study also examined the relationship between changes in prefrontal cortex activity and food consumption under the same conditions in CR and NCR. |
