Gustatory cortical lesions affect motivation for snack foods

Abstract

Most neuropsychological research using food as a reward uses single-bid auctions. We wished to determine whether focal brain lesions would affect the ability and motivation to win snack food items in a computerized auction allowing multiple bids. This allowed us to assess participants' abilities under more complex conditions. We enrolled 154 male penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI) veterans, mean age 58, from the Vietnam Head Injury Study registry, and 53 male uninjured veterans, mean age 59. We used voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) to identify effects of brain lesions on the ability to win items and on participants' answers to statements regarding their level of motivation and evaluation of how well they performed. Number of items won was not significantly associated with any lesions; however, lesions in gustatory cortex (GC) affected motivation and self-evaluation. Our findings provide further evidence of the primary GC's role in motivation for food and drink.

Keywords:

• Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping
• Traumatic brain injury
• Primary gustatory cortex

Acknowledgments

We especially thank the Vietnam War veterans who participated in this study. We thank the National Naval Medical Center for their support and provision of their facilities, S. Bonifant, B. Cheon, C. Ngo, A. Greathouse, K. Reding, and G. Tasick for their invaluable help with the testing of participants and organization of this study, and Sungyoung Auh for statistical help. SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The work was supported by the United States National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, intramural research program, and a project grant from the United States Army Medical Research and Material Command administrated by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation (Vietnam Head Injury Study Phase III: A 30-year post injury follow-up study, Grant DAMD17-01-1–0675). Olga Dal Monte was supported with funding from the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine via the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. Note that the views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, nor the United States Government.