Fasting reduces inhibitory and attentional control of food-related cues

Abstract

The metabolic and cognitive systems interact to create the motivational drive that occasionally leads to disrupted consummatory eating behaviors. In this study, we investigated whether stimulus-specific alterations of the inhibitory function are present following a period of food deprivation. Twenty-six participants with normal weight performed the Stop Signal Task (SST) and the Go/No-go (GNG) task to measure response inhibition to food images containing high or low caloric content after following –or not- a 12-hour fasting period. Response inhibition performance in the SST did not exhibit significant differences when considering neither fasting, stimulus type nor food caloric content. We instead found a higher percentage of commission errors in the No-go trials of the GNG task in the fasting session, and specially with high-caloric food items. In contrast, the accuracy in the Go trials was similar between conditions. A mixed logistic regression model confirmed the remarkable impact of fasting on the performance of response inhibition. Overall, our findings support an interpretation of the motivational drive to eat strongly associated with aspects of the inhibitory function underlying high attentional control, rather than to a proper response inhibition per se.