Focusing on Future Consequences Enhances Self-Controlled Dietary Choices.

Self-controlled dietary decisions, i.e., choosing a healthier food over a tastier one, are a major challenge for many people. Despite the potential profound consequences of frequent poor choices, maintaining a healthy diet proves challenging. This raises the question of how to facilitate self-controlled food decisions to promote healthier choices. The present study compared the influence of implicit and explicit information on food choices and their underlying decision processes. Participants watched two video clips as an implicit manipulation to induce different mindsets. Instructions to focus on either the short-term or long-term consequences of choices served as an explicit manipulation. Participants performed a binary food choice task, including foods with different health and taste values. The choice was made using a computer mouse, whose trajectories we used to calculate the influence of the food properties. Instruction to focus on long-term consequences compared to short-term consequences increased the number of healthy choices, reduced response times for healthy decisions, and increased the influence of health aspects during the decision-making process. The effect of video manipulation showed greater variability. While focusing on long-term consequences facilitated healthy food choices and reduced the underlying decision conflict, the current mindset appeared to have a minor influence.

Alpha and beta neural oscillations differentially reflect age-related differences in bilateral coordination.

Bilateral in-phase (IP) and anti-phase (AP) movements represent two fundamental modes of bilateral coordination that are essential for daily living. Although previous studies have shown that aging is behaviorally associated with decline in bilateral coordination, especially in AP movements, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we use kinematic measurements and electroencephalography to compare motor performance of young and older adults executing bilateral IP and AP hand movements. On the behavioral level, inter-limb synchronization was reduced during AP movements compared to IP and this reduction was stronger in the older adults. On the neural level, we found interactions between group and condition for task-related power change in different frequency bands. The interaction was driven by smaller alpha power decreases over the non-dominant cortical motor area in young adults during IP movements and larger beta power decreases over the midline region in older adults during AP movements. In addition, the decrease in inter-limb synchronization during AP movements was predicted by stronger directional connectivity in the beta-band: an effect more pronounced in older adults. Our results therefore show that age-related differences in the two bilateral coordination modes are reflected on the neural level by differences in alpha and beta oscillatory power as well as interhemispheric directional connectivity.

Is value-based choice repetition susceptible to medial frontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)? A preregistered study.

In value-based decision making, people have to weigh different options based on their subjective value. This process, however, also is influenced by choice biases, such as choice repetition: in a series of choices, people are more likely to repeat their decision than to switch to a different choice. Previously, it was shown that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can affect such choice biases. We applied tDCS over the medial prefrontal cortex to investigate whether tDCS can alter choice repetition in value-based decision making. In a preregistered study, we applied anodal, cathodal, and sham tDCS stimulation to 52 participants. While we found robust choice repetition effects, we did not find support for an effect of tDCS stimulation. We discuss these findings within the larger scope of the tDCS literature and highlight the potential roles of interindividual variability and current density strength.