Prisoners of Addictive Cues: Biobehavioral Markers of Overweight and Obese Adults with Food Addiction

Abstract

Obesity is associated with food and eating addiction (FA), but the biobehavioral markers of this condition are poorly understood. To characterize FA, we recruited 18 healthy controls and overweight/obese adults with (n = 31) and without (n = 17) FA (H-C, FAOB, NFAOB, respectively) to assess alpha brain asymmetry at rest using electroencephalogram; event-related potentials following exposure to high-calorie food (HCF), low-calorie food (LCF), and nonfood (NF) images in a Stroop paradigm; reaction time reflective of the Stroop bias; and symptoms of depression and disordered eating behavior. The FAOB group had the greatest emotional and uncontrollable eating, depressive, and binge-eating symptoms. The FAOB group displayed lower resting left alpha brain asymmetry than that of the NFAOB group. Differently from the other groups, the FAOB group presented attenuated Stroop bias following exposure to HCF relative to NF images, as well as a lower late positive potential component (LPPb; 450–495 ms) in both frontal and occipital regions. In the total cohort, a correlation was found between the Stroop bias and the LPPb amplitude. These results point to biobehavioral hypervigilance in response to addictive food triggers in overweight/obese adults with FA. This resembles other addictive disorders but is absent in overweight/obesity without FA.

Do Overweight People Have Worse Cognitive Flexibility? Cues-Triggered Food Craving May Have a Greater Impact

“…Previous studies have shown that monetary rewards may lead to a significant decline in the cost of inhibition control and switching [46]. For this reason, overweight people should allocate more cognitive resources to inhibiting food cravings [22,42]. Overall, these findings suggest that the mediating effect of food cravings on the indicators of overweight and the switching process is related to the distribution of attention and cognitive resources.…”

“…This result verifies Hypothesis 2. Overweight individuals tended to have higher food cravings [42] and showed an approach-avoidance pattern of attention allocation toward high-energy food [43], resulting in impaired performance in the switching tasks with food stimulation. Food-related attentional bias is sensitive to changes in the motivational and rewarding value of food [44].…”

Incentive sensitization in binge behaviors: A mini review on electrophysiological evidence

“…At the same time, late-stage motivated attention as reflected by enlarged P300 and LPP amplitudes occurred more consistently ( Ceballos et al, 2012 , Delgado-Rodríguez et al, 2019 , Herrmann et al, 2001 , Kim et al, 2018 , Kroczek et al, 2018 , Namkoong et al, 2004 , Petit et al, 2013 , Petit et al, 2014 , Petit et al, 2015 , Schienle et al, 2017 , Svaldi et al, 2010 , Thalemann et al,2007 , Wölfling et al, 2011 ). One study on pathological internet use ( Lai et al, 2017 ), three on binge eating ( Aviram-Friedman et al, 2020 , Lutz et al, 2021 , Wolz et al, 2017 ) and two on binge drinking ( Petit et al, 2012 , Ryerson et al, 2017 ) brought forth no significant or only very limited effects on P300 or LPP. As found in most studies, an increase in later ERP amplitudes to relevant cues in populations of different binge behaviors is in line with a common incentive sensitization process.…”

“…However, negative mood induced a stronger LPP amplitude enhancement in high calorie food for this BN sample ( Lutz et al, 2021 ). Though, an overweight sample with food addiction displayed a lower LPP amplitude change (between 450 and 495 ms) following high calorie food pictures compared to neutral pictures, compared to an overweight sample without food addiction for frontal and right posterior electrodes ( Aviram-Friedman, Kafri, Baz, Alyagon, & Zangen, 2020 ).…”