Will work less for food: Go/No-Go training decreases the reinforcing value of high-caloric food.

ABSTRACT

Consistently inhibiting responses to palatable food stimuli increases motor suppression for those stimuli and reduces their hedonic value, suggesting a close link between motor inhibition and food reward. The current study aimed to investigate whether GNG training also reduces the motivational, reinforcing value of palatable, high-calorie food. Participants completed either GNG training for high-calorie food or a control task. This was followed by a Concurrent Schedules Task (CST) to measure the reinforcing value of high-calorie food. As hypothesized, participants in the GNG condition showed reduced high-caloric food reinforcement, as indexed by the number of key presses participants were willing to execute to obtain the food, compared to the control condition. This difference between GNG and control, however, was only significant when the response requirement to obtain high-calorie food was high. These results suggest that GNG training not only reduces hedonic food value but also the motivational, reinforcing value of food.