Influence of negative mood on restrained eaters' memory suppression of food cues: An event-related potentials study.

Negative mood has been found to be a critical trigger for overeating in restrained eaters. The ability to suppress thinking of palatable food cues is crucial to control hedonic eating; nevertheless, little research has been conducted to explore inhibitory control in cognitive processes among restrained eaters. To address this gap, this study primed restrained eaters with negative (n = 23) or neutral emotions (n = 24) and applied a Think/No-think paradigm to explore their retrieval facilitation/suppression ability for food cues, while recording Electroencephalogram (EEG) data. Results indicated that the recall rate of the No-think condition (retrieval suppressing task) was higher than the Think condition (retrieval task). Negative affect did not influence the recall rate, but it did evoke smaller N2 amplitudes, larger P2 and P3 amplitudes, as well as late positive component (LPC) amplitudes. Among these components, P2 evoked by the No-think and Think conditions was larger than the perceptual control condition. Our findings suggested that in negative moods, restrained eaters need to allocate more attentional resources to suppress food cues. The findings further demonstrated that the influence of negative moods appeared at an early stage of cognitive processing and caused a resource depletion in memory suppression. This research provides a neurophysiological basis for understanding emotional influences on the process of restrained eaters' inhibition control for external food cues.

Wanting to eat matters: Negative affect and emotional eating were associated with impaired memory suppression of food cues.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have linked emotional eating with negative affect and decreased inhibitory control. However, studies on inhibitory control have generally focused on motor inhibition. How to stop higher-level cognitive processes, such as food-related memory retrieval or voluntary thoughts, received few direct investigation in field of food intake or food-related decision making. The current study, adopting Anderson and Green's Think/No-Think paradigm, aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional eating, negative affect and food-related memory suppression. METHOD: Sixty-one young females participated in the current study, during which they finished food specific Think/No-Think task. Their positive and negative affect and eating style were measured using Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule and Dutch Eating Behavior Question. The reward value of the food item used in the Think/No-Think task was measured using liking and wanting ratings. RESULTS: As hypothesized, negative affect and emotional eating were associated with decreased memory suppression of palatable food cues. Further analysis showed that higher emotional eating was associated with greater wanting only among the food items which were previously suppressed however remembered later. DISCUSSION: The current study presents the first evidence that negative affect and emotional eating were associated with impaired memory suppression of palatable food cues, and it provided insight into the interaction between reward valuation for the food cues and hippocampal memory mechanisms during retrieval suppression.

Effects of negative mood state on event-related potentials of restrained eating subgroups during an inhibitory control task.

Negative mood states are hypothesized to increase the risk for overeating among restrained eaters. However, neurophysiological features of inhibitory control during negative mood states among restrained eaters are poorly understood. To address this gap, we aimed to assess event related potentials (ERPs) associated with food-specific inhibitory control among successful restrained eaters (SREs, n = 17), unsuccessful restrained eaters (UREs, n = 18), and non-restrained eaters (NREs, n = 18) engaged in a food-related go/no-go task during negative versus neutral mood states. Compared to neutral mood states, negative mood states were related to comparatively greater no-go N2a amplitudes in the entire sample. Regarding group differences, no-go N2a amplitudes of SREs were greater than those of UREs across negative and neutral mood states. However, no-go P3 amplitudes of SREs decreased significantly during the negative mood state while no change was observed for other groups. Results suggest that negative mood states may interfere with conflict monitoring and behavioral inhibition in general, but inhibitory control over food may be enhanced among SREs during negative mood states relative to UREs. Results may provide psychophysiological bases for understanding why SREs succeed and UREs fail in controlling appetitive responses to external food cues.