Published papers

Danielle Ferriday, Matthew L. Bosworth, Samantha Lai, Nicolas Godinot, Nathalie Martin, Ashley A. Martin, Peter J. Rogers, Jeffrey M. Brunstrom

Physiology & Behavior 152 (2015) 389–396

Eating slowly is associated with a lower body mass index. However, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here, our objective was to determinewhether eating a meal at a slow rate improves episodic memory for the meal and promotes satiety. Participants (N=40) consumed a 400 ml portion of tomato soup at either a fast (1.97 ml/s) or a slow (0.50 ml/s) rate. Appetite ratings were elicited at baseline and at the end of the meal
(satiation). Satiety was assessed using; i) an ad libitum biscuit ‘taste test’ (3 h after the meal) and ii) appetite ratings (collected 2 h after the meal and after the ad libitum snack). Finally, to evaluate episodic memory for the meal, participants self-served the volume of soup that they believed they had consumed earlier (portion size memory) and completed a rating of memory ‘vividness’. Participantswho consumed the soup slowly reported a greater increase in fullness, both at the end of the meal and during the inter-meal interval. However, we found little effect of eating rate on subsequent ad libitum snack intake. Importantly, after 3 h, participants who ate the soup slowly remembered eating a larger portion. These findings show that eating slowly promotes
self-reported satiation and satiety. For the first time, they also suggest that eating rate influences portion size memory. However, eating slowly did not affect ratings of memory vividness and we found little evidence for a relationship between episodic memory and satiety. Therefore, we are unable to conclude that episodic memory mediates effects of eating rate on satiety.

read the full article

Guido Camps, Monica Mars, Cees de Graaf, and Paul AM Smeets

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2016;104:1-8

In recently published work from the Nudge-it team at Wageningen University we have shown that fullness isn't the same as being full.

Being full is less affected by how full your stomach  is, but more by the the taste and feeling in your mouth of what you've eaten. This leaves us to conclude that thin liquids may leave you feeling rather empty, regardless of their caloric load (in our case a respectable 500Kcal). The opposite is true of a thick, slow to drink, 100Kcal shake, which left the stomach quickly, but also left the drinker feeling rather fuller.

read the full article

Laura N. van der Laan,  E.A. Barendse, Max A. Viergever, Paul A.M. Smeets

Behavioural Brain Research Volume 296, 1 January 2016, Pages 442–450

Impulsivity is a personality trait that is linked to unhealthy eating and overweight. A few studies assessed how impulsivity relates to neural responses to anticipating and tasting food, but it is unknown how impulsivity relates to neural responses during food choice. Although impulsivity is a multi-faceted construct, it is unknown whether impulsivity subtypes have different underlying neural mechanisms. We investigated how impulsivity correlates with brain responses during food choice and in how far different impulsivity subtypes modulate brain responses during food choice differently. Twenty weight-concerned females performed an fMRI task in which they indicated for high and low energy snacks whether or not they wanted to eat them. Impulsivity subtypes were measured by the monetary delay discounting task and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (total BIS-11 and subscales). Only temporal subtypes of impulsivity, namely delay discounting and the BIS-11 non-planning subscale, modulated responses to food choice; both measures correlated positively with striatum activation during high versus low energy choices. However, only delay discounting predicted high energy choices, whereas BIS-11 non-planning independently related to a striatum region that reflects subjective stimulus value. To conclude, the brain mechanisms underlying subtypes of impulsivity have a common ground but differ in specific aspects of food-related decision-making. The findings advance our understanding of the neural correlates of different impulsivity subtypes in the food domain.

read the full article

Laura N. van der Laan,Lisette Charbonnier, Sanne Griffioen-Roose, Floor M. Kroese, Inge van Rijn, Paul A.M. Smeets,

Biological Psychology 117 (2016) 108–116

Restrained eaters do not eat less than their unrestrained counterparts. Proposed underlying mechanismsare that restrained eaters are more reward sensitive and that they have worse inhibitory control. AlthoughfMRI studies assessed these mechanisms, it is unknown how brain anatomy relates to dietary restraint.Voxel-based morphometry was performed on anatomical scans from 155 normal-weight females toinvestigate how regional grey matter volume correlates with restraint. A positive correlation was foundin several areas, including the parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, striatum and the amygdala (bilat-erally, p < 0.05, corrected). A negative correlation was found in several areas, including the inferior frontalgyrus, superior frontal gyrus, supplementary motor area, middle cingulate cortex and precentral gyrus(p < 0.05, corrected). That higher restraint relates to higher grey matter volume in reward-related areasand lower grey matter volume in regions involved in inhibition, provides a neuroanatomical underpinningof theories relating restraint to increased reward sensitivity and reduced inhibitory capacity.

read the full article

Andreas Fritsche and Hubert Preissl

Neuropsychopharmacology (2015), 1–9

read the full article

Stephanie Kullmann, Martin Heni, Ralf Veit, Klaus Scheffler, Jurgen Machann, Hans-Ulrich Haring,
Andreas Fritsche, and Hubert Preissl

Diabetes Care 2015;38:1044–1050

Due to strong associations with numerous conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, obesity has become a major public health concern. Obesity is associated with peripheral insulin resistance in many organs, such as muscle, liver, and adipose tissue. However, only recently was the brain identified as an insulinsensitive organ regulating food intake. In humans, the central nervous effects of insulin still remain ill defined. In search of new insights in the pathogenesis of obesity and brain insulin resistance, modern neuroimaging techniques have emerged as valuable tools to investigate insulin action in the human brain.

 read the full article

Charlotte A. Hardman, Danielle Ferriday, Lesley Kyle, Peter J. Rogers, and Jeffrey M. Brunstrom

PLoS ONE 10(4):1-17 (2015)

The recent rise in obesity is widely attributed to changes in the dietary environment (e.g., increased availability of energy-dense foods and larger portion sizes). However, a critical feature of our “obesogenic environment” may have been overlooked - the dramatic increase in
“dietary variability” (the tendency for specific mass-produced foods to be available in numerous varieties that differ in energy content). In this study we tested the hypothesis that dietary variability compromises the control of food intake in humans

read the full article

Ashley A. Martin, Liam R. Hamill, Sarah Davies, Peter J. Rogers and Jeffrey M. Brunstrom

Appetite 95: 81-88 (2015)

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are thought to be problematic for weight management because energy
delivered in liquid form may be less effective at suppressing appetite than solid foods. However,
little is known about the relative ‘expected satiation’ (anticipated fullness) of SSBs and solid foods. This is
relevant because expected satiation is an important determinant of portion selection and energy intake.

read the full article

Ciarán G. Forde, Eva Almiron-Roig and Jeffrey M. Brunstrom

Current Obesity Reports  4:131–140 (2015)

Recent advances in the approaches used to quantify expectations of satiation and satiety have led to a better understanding of how humans select and consume food, and the associated links to energy intake regulation. When compared calorie for calorie some foods are expected to deliver several times more satiety than others, and multiple studies have demonstrated that people are able to discriminate between similar foodsreliably and with considerable sensitivity.

read the full article

Jeffrey M. Brunstrom, Peter J. Rogers , Kevin P. Myers and Jon D. Holtzman

Appetite 91:  415–425 (2015)

Much of our dietary behaviour is learned. In particular, one suggestion is that ‘flavour-nutrient learning’
(F-NL) influences both choice and intake of food. F-NL occurs when an association forms between
the orosensory properties of a food and its postingestive effects. Unfortunately, this process has been difficult
to evaluate because F-NL is rarely observed in controlled studies of adult humans. One possibility
is that we are disposed to F-NL. However, learning is compromised by exposure to a complex Western
diet that includes a wide range of energy-dense foods.

read the full article