Appetitive Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer in Participants with Normal-Weight and Obesity

Meemken, Marie-Theres; Horstmann, Annette

doi:10.3390/nu11051037

Cited by 22 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…This must be contrasted with classical Pavlovian-instrumental-transfer tasks, which directly assess how cues associated with a reward alter existing instrumental behavior. In two studies employing these tasks, obese and normal-weight individuals exhibited similar response biases, while goal-directed behavior seemed to be more strongly affected by rewarding food cues in overweight participants (Lehner et al, 2017a;Meemken and Horstmann, 2019). Together, these results suggest that the presence of reward or punishment predicting cues per se does not bias the execution or learning of goal-directed responses more strongly in obese than normalweight individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Enhanced Go and NoGo Learning in Individuals With Obesity

Kube

Wiencke

Hahn

et al. 2020

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Overeating in individuals with obesity is hypothesized to be partly caused by automatic action tendencies to food cues that have the potential to override goal-directed dietary restriction. Individuals with obesity are often characterized by alterations in the processing of such rewarding food, but also of non-food stimuli, and previous research has suggested a stronger impact on the execution of goal-directed actions in obesity. Here, we investigated whether Pavlovian cues can also corrupt the learning of new approach or withdrawal behavior in individuals with obesity. We employed a probabilistic Pavlovian-instrumental learning paradigm in which participants (29 normal-weight and 29 obese) learned to actively respond (Go learning) or withhold a response (NoGo learning) in order to gain monetary rewards or avoid losses. Participants were better at learning active approach responses (Go) in the light of anticipated rewards and at learning to withhold a response (NoGo) in the light of imminent punishments. Importantly, there was no evidence for a stronger corruption of instrumental learning in individuals with obesity. Instead, they showed better learning across conditions than normal-weight participants. Using a computational reinforcement learning model, we additionally found an increased learning rate in individuals with obesity. Previous studies have mostly reported a lower reinforcement learning performance in individuals with obesity. Our results contradict this and suggest that their performance is not universally impaired: Instead, while previous studies found reduced stimulus-value learning, individuals with obesity may show better action-value learning. Our findings highlight the need for a broader investigation of behavioral adaptation in obesity across different task designs and types of reinforcement learning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Enhanced Go and NoGo Learning in Individuals With Obesity

Kube

Wiencke

Hahn

et al. 2020

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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“…Three different studies have sought to investigate sensitivity of instrumental responding to cues that signal food rewards as a function of weight status in humans, using outcome-specific PIT paradigms. 55,68,69 In general, these studies have not found evidence suggesting differences between healthy-weight and individuals with obesity in the strength of the outcome-specific transfer effect. For instance, Meemken and Horstmann 69 compared instrumental responding for a specific juice reward (e.g., mango juice) in the presence of a Pavlovian cue previously associated with that juice, relative to trials with presentations of a cue paired with a different flavoured juice (e.g., apple juice).…”

Section: Pavlovian-to-instrumental Transfer: Biasing Instrumental Resmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…In this vein, PIT has been pointed out as an alternative approach to measuring stimulusbound behavior that is insensitive to devaluation, 61 however, when directly addressing the HHO, this approach has not shown consistent effects. 55,68,69 Nonetheless, three studies are not sufficient evidence to rule out the HHO. In addition, recent accounts suggest that PIT could be sensitive to the devaluation of the outcome 88 jeopardizing its reliability as an experimental model of habits.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this study also included participants with overweight (n = 17) and reported, surprisingly, that they showed a stronger PIT effect using this paradigm, relative to both healthy-weight and subjects with obesity. It should be noted that unlike classic outcome-specific PIT studies, where participants respond on keys associated with various food and drink rewards, 69 participants in the study of Lehner and colleagues had the choice to respond on a no-reward key or a chocolate key. 68 Surprisingly, participants responded more on the no-reward key than the chocolate key in the presence of the Pavlovian cue signalling the no-reward outcome.…”

Section: Pavlovian-to-instrumental Transfer: Biasing Instrumental Resmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is the habit system altered in individuals with obesity? A systematic review

Ciria¹,

Watson²,

Vadillo³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Habit-like eating behavior is repeatedly pointed to as a key cognitive mechanism contributing to the maintenance of overweight and obesity. Here, we conducted a systematic review of the literature to assess the existent behavioural evidence for the Habit Hypothesis for Overeating (HHO) which states that overweight and obesity are the consequence of an imbalance between the habit and goal-directed reward learning systems, leading to overconsumption of food. We found a total of 16 studies implementing a variety of different experimental protocols (i.e., free operant paradigm, slips-of-action test, two-step task, Pavlovian-to-Instrumental (PIT) paradigm, probabilistic learning task) and manipulations that rely on radically different theoretical stances. Studies using satiety-based outcome devaluation procedures as well as probabilistic learning tasks seem to provide preliminary evidence for the HHO. However, findings from different outcome devaluation procedures, sequential decision-making tasks, and PIT paradigms fail to show increased habitual eating behavior propensity in obesity. Taken together, the results of these studies do not support the HHO conclusively. More research along these lines is needed, as if proved, HHO might have a transformative impact on public health, shifting the traditional framework in the treatment and prevention of overweight and obesity.

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“…disorders (Genauck et al, 2020), anorexia nervosa (Vogel et al, 2019) and obesity (Lehner et al, 2017;Meemken & Horstmann, 2019;Watson et al, 2014).…”

Section: Ack N Owled G M Entsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How predictive learning influences choice: Evidence for a GPCR‐based memory process necessary for Pavlovian‐instrumental transfer

Laurent¹,

Balleine²

2021

Journal of Neurochemistry

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Efficient decision-making requires choosing the course of action that is optimal given the current circumstances. Such choices usually involve selecting actions that procure desirable outcomes while avoiding or ignoring those earning unwanted or irrelevant outcomes (Adams, 1982). However, choice sometimes entails choosing between actions associated with similarly desirable outcomes. In these situations, choice is often biased by environmental stimuli that share a history with the outcome earned by an action.

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Appetitive Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer in Participants with Normal-Weight and Obesity

Cited by 22 publications

References 62 publications

Enhanced Go and NoGo Learning in Individuals With Obesity

Enhanced Go and NoGo Learning in Individuals With Obesity

Is the habit system altered in individuals with obesity? A systematic review

How predictive learning influences choice: Evidence for a GPCR‐based memory process necessary for Pavlovian‐instrumental transfer

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