Brain Activity Predicts Likelihood for Food Craving

Amy Taylor May 06, 2014

Between a piece of cake and an apple, which one would you choose? Just by looking at your brain activity, scientists can tell whether you’ll be able to resist food cravings.

Researchers from Dartmouth College and the University of Cologne found that a person’s ability to resist temptation, such as food cravings, can be predicted by looking at whether activity is occurring in regions of the brain linked with reward, or regions of the brain linked with self-control, in response to viewing tempting photos.

In the study, 31 women went through brain imaging as they completed two tasks. The first task involved having them look at different pictures of high-calorie foods, including desserts and fast food items, and say whether each image was set indoors or outdoors. The researchers had them do this task in order to see what activity was occurring in the nucleus accumbens part of the brain, in response to viewing the food images. The nucleus accumbens is known to play a role in affect and reward.

In the second task, the researchers wanted to see how activity in the inferior frontal gyrus part of the brain -- which is associated with self-control -- was affected by viewing the food images. For this task, the participants were instructed to either press, or not press, a button in response to cues that were given with the food images.

After these two experiments, the researchers then had the women go through a week where they were signalled several times a day on their phones to report food cravings and eating behaviours. If they indicated they were experiencing a food desire, they were asked to say how strong that desire was and how resistant they were to giving in to it, as well as if they ended up giving into it. If they gave into it, they were also asked to report how much they ate of the desired food.

Meanwhile, those who had more activity in the inferior frontal gyrus part of the brain were the ones least likely to give in to their food cravings, and had more control over their consumption of the craved food. In fact, women with the lowest activity in this brain region were 8.2 times more likely to give in to cravings than the women with the highest activity.

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Scientists Can Predict Whether You Can Resist That Donut By Looking At Your Brain