Altered Brain Reactivity to Food Cues in Undergraduate Students with Disordered Eating Behaviors

Abstract

Purpose: A growing body of evidence has shown that electroencephalography (EEG) is an interesting method of assessing the underlying brain physiology associated with disordered eating. Using EEG, we sought to evaluate brain reactivity to hyper-palatable food cues in undergraduate students with disordered eating behavior (DEB).

Methods: After assessing the eating behaviors of twenty-six undergraduate students using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), electroencephalographic signals were recorded while the participants were presented with pictures of hyper-palatable food. The current study used a temporospatial principal component analysis (PCA) approach to identify event-related potential (ERP) responses that differed between DEB and non-DEB individuals.

Results: A temporospatial PCA applied to the ERPs identified a positivity with a maximum amplitude at 347 ms at the occipital-temporal electrodes in response to pictures of hyper-palatable food. This positivity was correlated with the EAT-26 scores. Participants with DEB showed reduced positivities in this component compared with those without DEB.

Conclusion: Our findings may reflect greater motivated attention toward hyper-palatable food cues in undergraduate students with DEB. These results are an important step toward obtaining a more refined understanding of specific abnormalities related to reactivity to food cues in this population.

Keywords: eating disorders; electroencephalography; hyper-palatable foods; neurophysiology.

Figure 1

The sequence of events during a trial. The participants viewed pictures depicting hyper-palatable foods preceded by text that engaged their attention on the pictures. After viewing a food picture (such as a piece of cake, for illustrative purposes), the participants performed a rating task in which they provided ratings of valence, arousal, and intention to consume for the food pictures.

Figure 2

(A) The top panel shows a topographic map of the scalp (3D head, posterior view). The voltage distributions of the factor O1347P across the posterior electrodes are shown for the DEB and non-DEB participants. The colormap changes from blue to red as the voltages (µV) become more positive over the scalp. The maximal positive voltage occurred at the O1 electrode. The DEB participants presented reduced positivity compared to the non-DEB participants. The bottom panel shows the waveform for the factor O1347P, with its maximal peak amplitude around 347 ms. (B) Event-related potential waveforms from four occipital–temporal electrodes (P7/T5, P8/T6, O1, and O2). The pattern of the ERP waveforms goes in the same direction as that of the factor O1347P (presented in Figure 2A), showing a reduced positivity in the DEB participants compared to the non-DEB participants.