Neurocognitive and Environmental Factors Influencing Human Food Choices PDF

The neurocognitive and environmental factors that can influence human food choices Pablo Arrona, Ph.D. (c) NUTR 511 From genetics to the brain 1 What is eating behavior?  Dictionary definition The way in which someone conducts oneself or behaves Anything that an organism...

The neurocognitive and environmental factors that can influence human food choices Pablo Arrona, Ph.D. (c) NUTR 511 From genetics to the brain 1 What is eating behavior?  Dictionary definition The way in which someone conducts oneself or behaves Anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation …. As it relates to food What is eating behavior?  General definition Eating behavior is a complex interplay of physiologic, psychological, social and genetic factors that influence meal timing, quantity of food intake, food preference, and food selection2.  What is eating behavior?  Health-oriented definition Eating behavior is a broad term that encompasses food choice and motives, feeding practices, dieting, and eating-related problems such as obesity, eating disorders, and feeding disorders. Within the context of behavioral medicine, eating behavior research focuses on the etiology, prevention, and treatment of obesity and eating disorders, as well as the promotion of healthy eating patterns that help manage and prevent medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and certain cancers3.  What is eating behavior?  It can also be a construct Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire4 influence of environment  Our definition Eating behavior is a complex interplay of physiologic, psychological, social and genetic factors that influence meal timing, quantity of food intake, food preference, and food selection. Anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation Three main levels Cognitive Homeostatic Reward 5 6 Physiological regulation Hunger: Determined primarily by - Nutrient sensing - Mechanical tension - I.e. past meal/energy status can have leptin resistance when starting to gain weight Leptin  Produced by fat stores (Adipocytes)  Anorexigenic → Suppresses appetite  Long-term regulation of food intake (but also increased post-prandially)  Acts in the hypothalamus 6  only need to remember AGRP/NPY and POMC/CART (not the other ones) 7 Hypothalamus The key regulator of food intake Arcuate nucleus Two group of neurons: AGRP/NPY → orexigenic POMC/CART → Anorexigenic Project to Paraventricular nucleus 6 7 7 Ghrelin  Produced by the stomach  Orexigenic → Increase hunger  Gets suppressed after a meal, 6 increases over time Insulin  B-cells pancreas  Promote uptake of glucose to the cells  Insulin is anorexigenic 6  Dual effect of insulin? Nutrient signaling → Glucostatic theory of feeding 7 6 6 Three main levels Cognitive Homeostatic Reward What about reward? Hunger or craving?  Flavor-conditioned response 8 Lick Lick detector detector Glucose Control The rat prefers the taste associated with glucose 8 In our current environment, there is a lot of reward Reward system Three components  Associative learning  Incentive salience  Positively-valanced emotions Dopamine 8 Reward system Three components  Associative learning  Incentive salience  Positively-valanced emotions Dopamine Three main levels Cognitive Homeostatic Reward Brain and cognition  What is cognition? The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses The study of behavior and neural substrates of human perception, thinking, reasoning, learning, memory, and language abilities  Cognitive processes  Cognitive processes include lower-level and higher-level processes Lower-level Higher-level Basic sensory perception Complex processing (Seeing, smelling, tasting…) (making a decision, setting goals, controlling a desire to eat) Lower-level cognitive processes  Visual perception  The sight of food elicits a wide range of physiological, emotional and cognitive responses.  Areas of the brain: Bilateral posterior fusiform gyrus, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the left middle insula.  There is a regulation of hunger and energy content 9 Lower-level cognitive processes  Visual saliency Property of a visual stimulus that stands out from the surrounding environment, for instance because of its color or brightness. Lower-level cognitive processes  Visual saliency  Milosavljevic et al. (2012) They completed a food choice task in which they selected which item wanted to eat among two items Ranking of preference They also manipulated the brightness of the images. Visual saliency sometimes had a greater impact on food choices than participants’ preferences.10 Lower-level cognitive processes  Visual saliency 11 Lower-level cognitive processes  Sounds Menti.com 7428 7071  Lower-level cognitive processes  Sounds  Individuals tend to associate certain types of sounds with certain tastes  Carvalho et al. (2016) Participants unknowingly tasted the same beer while hearing different soundtracks (sweet, bitter, sour)  Beer rated sweeter when listening to “sweet music”. And stronger when listening to bitter soundtrack12  Lower-level cognitive processes  Sounds 13  Cognitive processes  Cognitive processes include lower-level and higher-level processes Lower-level Higher-level Basic sensory perception Complex processing (Seeing, smelling, tasting…) (making a decision, setting goals, controlling a desire to eat) Higher-level cognitive processes Higher-level cognitive processes  Fundamental executive functions (Diamond, 2013)  Inhibitory control: The ability to control impulses and to override an inappropriate or undesirable action  Working memory: The ability to hold and manipulate information mentally  Cognitive flexibility: The ability to switch between tasks and adapt to changing contexts14 Higher-level cognitive processes  Inhibitory control Go/no-go task: Classic cognitive task used to measure inhibitory Participants need to respond as quickly as possible to a predetermined type of ‘go’ images (e.g., office supplies). They need to withhold their response to predetermined ‘no-go’ images (e.g., food items). Higher-level cognitive processes Commissions error: Click when not supposed to → more impulsivity Higher-level cognitive processes Decreased inhibitory control abilities have been observed among individuals with higher BMI 15, 16 (e.g., Liu et al., 2022; Tsegaye et al., 2022) Price et al. (2016) divided participants according to their score on the dietary restraint subscale of the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ): 17 Higher-level cognitive processes  Higher-level cognitive processes Less inhibitory control → Correlated with Obesity Overeating Binge eating Hedonic eating  18 Inhibitory control training Healthy food Unhealthy food Higher-level cognitive processes  Higher-level cognitive processes Attention → Visual attention Top down Bottom up  Higher-level cognitive processes Eye-tracking 19 The irrational brain → Cognitive bias  The context in which humans are placed can influence their reasoning and decisions.  Negative calorie illusion  The calorie content of a meal is estimated as being lower when the meal includes both a less healthy (e.g., hamburger) and a healthy (e.g., salad) food item than when it includes the less 20 healthy food item alone (e.g., Forwood et al., 2013) Cognitive bias  Hendriks-Hartensveld et al. (2022)  Intake increased when the meal was labelled as ‘light’ as 21 opposed to ‘filling Cognitive bias  The impact of eco-labeling (Sörqvist et al., 2013) Participants who scored high on a questionnaire on attitudes toward sustainable consumer behavior: Preferred the taste of the “eco-friendly” coffee (it was the same coffee) 22 Were willing to pay more for it Neurocognitive and environmental influences Humans are susceptible to all kinds of environmental influences on their food preferences and choices  Visual characteristics of the food items  Ambient sounds  Labels/marketing  Social media (misinformation)  Presence of others  Stressful events Most importantly, they are often unaware of the impact of these factors on their choices The cultural brain Xu et al. (2022) Chinese adults watched traditional and western foods (furniture as control). fMRI: Chinese food images elicited stronger activation in regions linked to cravings, taste perception, attention, reward, and visual processing Western food images elicited stronger activation in areas involved in visual object recognition and visual processing 23  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHotlIpbz SA&ab_channel=BuzzFeedVideo  Acquired taste  Three genetic variants in Marmite lovers  SIX3  OR12D1  NRXN3  This explain within-culture preferences, but not between cultures Acquired taste  There are food components for which we have “natural aversion”  Bitter  Spicy  24 The social appetite The ‘social appetite’ refers to the social context in which food is produced, distributed, consumed and disposed—the social context that shapes our food choices. Foods have social significance/meaning  24 The social appetite The ‘social appetite’ refers to the social context in which food is produced, distributed, consumed and disposed—the social context that shapes our food choices. Foods have social significance/meaning Socio/cultural reasons 24 that explain food Indigenous tradition Culinary history McDonalization Food cosmopolitanism/ globalization Politics Marketing and social norms Class Concluding  There are biological basis for eating  But there are also environmental and social  They interact with each other  References 1) Loos, r.J.F., Yeo, g.S.H. The genetics of obesity: from discovery to biology. Nat rev genet 23, 120–133 (2022). Https://doi.Org/10.1038/s41576-021-00414-z 2) Grimm er, steinle ni. Genetics of eating behavior: established and emerging concepts. Nutr rev. 2011 jan;69(1):52-60. Doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00361.X. Pmid: 21198635; pmcid: pmc3052625. 3) LaCaille, L. (2013). Eating Behavior. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1613 4) van Strien, T., Frijters, J.E.R., Bergers, G.P.A. and Defares, P.B. (1986), The Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) for assessment of restrained, emotional, and external eating behavior. Int. J. Eat. Disord., 5: 295-315. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-108X(198602)5:23.0.CO;2-T 5) Understanding Nutrition, 3rd Edition (Cengage).By Gail Hammond, Colleen O’Connor, Leonard A. Piché, Eleanor Noss Whitney, Sharon Rady Rolfes 6) Ross, A. C., Caballero, B. H., Cousins, R. J., Tucker, K. L., & Ziegler, T. R. (2014). Modern nutrition in health and disease: Eleventh edition. Wolters Kluwer Health Adis (ESP). 7) https://basicmedicalkey.com/67-2/ 8) de Araujo IE, Schatzker M, Small DM. Rethinking Food Reward. Annu Rev Psychol. 2020 Jan 4;71:139-164. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011643. Epub 2019 Sep 27. PMID: 31561741. 9) van der Laan LN, de Ridder DT, Viergever MA, Smeets PA. The first taste is always with the eyes: a meta-analysis on the neural correlates of processing visual food cues. Neuroimage. 2011 Mar 1;55(1):296-303. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.11.055. Epub 2010 Nov 25. PMID: 21111829. 10) Milosavljevic, M., Navalpakkam, V., Koch, C., & Rangel, A. (2012). Relative visual saliency differences induce sizable bias in consumer choice. Journal of consumer psychology, 22(1), 67-74 11) Michels, L., Ochmann, J., Schmitt, K., Laumer, S., & Tiefenbeck, V. (2023). Salience, transparency, and self-nudging: a digital nudge to promote healthier food product choices. European Journal of Information Systems, 1-31 12) Reinoso-Carvalho, F., Wang, Q. J., Van Ee, R., & Spence, C. (2016). The influence of soundscapes on the perception and evaluation of beers. Food quality and preference, 52, 32-41. 13) Peng-Li, D., Byrne, D. V., Chan, R. C., & Wang, Q. J. (2020). The influence of taste-congruent soundtracks on visual attention and food choice: A cross-cultural eye-tracking study in Chinese and Danish consumers. Food Quality and Preference, 85, 103962. 14) Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual review of psychology, 64, 135-168.  References 15) Z. N., Jiang, J. Y., Cai, T. S., & Zhang, D. L. (2022). A study of response inhibition in overweight/obesity people based on event-related potential. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 826648 16) Tsegaye, A., Guo, C., Stoet, G., Cserjési, R., Kökönyei, G., & Logemann, H. A. (2022). The relationship between reward context and inhibitory control, does it depend on BMI, maladaptive eating, and negative affect?. BMC psychology, 10, 1-9. 17) Price, M., Lee, M., & Higgs, S. (2016). Food-specific response inhibition, dietary restraint and snack intake in lean and overweight/obese adults: a moderated-mediation model. International Journal of Obesity, 40(5), 877-882. 18) Yang, Y., Shields, G. S., Wu, Q., Liu, Y., Chen, H., & Guo, C. (2019). Cognitive training on eating behaviour and weight loss: A meta‐analysis and systematic review. Obesity Reviews, 20(11), 1628-1641. 19) Ares, G., Giménez, A., Bruzzone, F., Vidal, L., Antúnez, L. and Maiche, A. (2013), Visual Processing of Food Labels. J Sens Stud, 28: 138-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/joss.12031 20) Forwood, S. E., Ahern, A., Hollands, G. J., Fletcher, P. C., & Marteau, T. M. (2013). Underestimating calorie content when healthy foods are present: an averaging effect or a reference-dependent anchoring effect?. PLoS One, 8(8), e71475. 21) Hendriks-Hartensveld, A. E., Rolls, B. J., Cunningham, P. M., Nederkoorn, C., & Havermans, R. C. (2022). Does labelling a food as ‘light’vs.‘filling’influence intake and sensory-specific satiation?. Appetite, 171, 105916. 22) Sörqvist, P., Hedblom, D., Holmgren, M., Haga, A., Langeborg, L., Nöstl, A., & Kågström, J. (2013). Who needs cream and sugar whenthere is eco-labeling? Taste and willingness to pay for “eco-friendly” coffee. PloS one, 8(12), e80719. 23) Xu X, Pu J, Shaw A, Jackson T. Neural responsiveness to Chinese versus Western food images: An functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Chinese young adults. Front Nutr. 2022 Aug 12;9:948039. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.948039. PMID: 36034899; PMCID: PMC9411937. 24) Germov, J. & Williams, L. 2017, A Sociology of Food & Nutrition: The social appetite, 4th edition, Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Journal club  Discussion  General thoughts??  Explain the protocol  Why the division of hunger?  Why was the PFC selected  What were the results?  Let’s suppose you want to a subsequent study, what would you add?