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Effects of distraction on taste-related neural processing: a cross-sectional fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:In the current obesogenic environment we often eat while electronic devices, such as smart phones, computers, or the television, distract us. Such "distracted eating" is associated with increased food intake and overweight. However, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of this phenomenon are unknown. OBJECTIVE:Our aim was to elucidate these mechanisms by investigating whether distraction attenuates processing in the primary and secondary taste cortices, located in the insula and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), respectively. METHODS:Forty-one healthy, normal-weight participants received fixed amounts of higher- and lower-sweetness isocaloric chocolate milk while performing a high- or low-distracting detection task during fMRI in 2 test sessions. Subsequently, we measured ad libitum food intake. RESULTS:As expected, a primary taste cortex region in the right insula responded more to the sweeter drink (P < 0.001, uncorrected). Distraction did not affect this insular sweetness response across the group, but did weaken sweetness-related connectivity of this region to a secondary taste region in the right OFC (P-family-wise error, cluster, small-volume corrected = 0.020). Moreover, individual differences in distraction-related attenuation of taste activation in the insula predicted increased subsequent ad libitum food intake after distraction (r = 0.36). CONCLUSIONS:These results reveal a mechanism explaining how distraction during consumption attenuates neural taste processing. Moreover, our study shows that such distraction-induced decreases in neural taste processing contribute to individual differences in the susceptibility for overeating. Thus, being mindful about the taste of food during consumption could perhaps be part of successful prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity, which should be further tested in these target groups. This study was preregistered at the Open Science Framework as https://bit.ly/31RtDHZ.

SUBMITTER: Duif I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7198299 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundSocial interaction often occurs in noisy environments with many extraneous sensory stimuli. This is especially relevant for youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who commonly experience sensory over-responsivity (SOR) in addition to social challenges. However, the relationship between SOR and social difficulties is still poorly understood and thus rarely addressed in interventions. This study investigated the effect of auditory sensory distracters on neural processing of emotion identification in youth with ASD and the effects of increasing attention to social cues by priming participants with their own emotional faces.MethodsWhile undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 30 youth with ASD and 24 typically developing (TD) age-matched controls (ages 8-17 years) identified faces as happy or angry with and without simultaneously hearing aversive environmental noises. Halfway through the task, participants also viewed videos of their own emotional faces. The relationship between parent-rated auditory SOR and brain responses during the task was also examined.ResultsDespite showing comparable behavioral performance on the task, ASD and TD youth demonstrated distinct patterns of neural activity. Compared to TD, ASD youth showed greater increases in amygdala, insula, and primary sensory regions when identifying emotions with noises compared to no sounds. After viewing videos of their own emotion faces, ASD youth showed greater increases in medial prefrontal cortex activation compared to TD youth. Within ASD youth, lower SOR was associated with reduced increased activity in subcortical regions after the prime and greater increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex after the prime, particularly in trials with noises.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the sensory environment plays an important role in how ASD youth process social information. Additionally, we demonstrated that increasing attention to relevant social cues helps ASD youth engage frontal regions involved in higher-order social cognition, a mechanism that could be targeted in interventions. Importantly, the effect of the intervention may depend on individual differences in SOR, supporting the importance of pre-screening youth for sensory challenges prior to social interventions.

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Effects of distraction on taste-related neural processing: a cross-sectional fMRI study.

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