Food appearance affects reward-related brain activity in healthy adults: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Abstract

A good appearance of food increases appetite. A new food product called iEat® resembles the appearance and softness of familiar foods. Previous studies have reported that iEat® foods increase appetite. However, the neuronal substrates underlying the increase in appetite following the observation of iEat® foods remain unknown. In the present study, the brain activity of 20 healthy adults during the visual presentation of iEat® and pureed foods and non-food objects was examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Compared with pureed foods and non-food objects, iEat® foods showed significantly greater activation in regions of the brain reward system, such as the amygdala, ventral striatum and orbital frontal cortex. In addition, individual differences in the activity of the left amygdala were positively correlated with subjective appetite ratings. These results suggest that the good appearance of foods, such as iEat® foods, may be useful for stimulating the appetite of patients with poor appetite.

Keywords:

• Appetite
• food appearance
• neuroimaging
• modified diets
• MRI

Acknowledgements

A part of this study was presented at the 7th ESSD Congress in 2017. We thank Sarina Iwabuchi, PhD, from Edanz (https://jp.edanz.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hamamatsu City Rehabilitation Hospital, Japan (Permission number:16-79) and was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Patient consent

All participants provided written informed consent before participating in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a JSPS KAKENHI grant to S.T. [grant no. 20H04050].