No evidence of calorie‐related modulation of N2 in food‐related Go/No‐Go training: A preregistered ERP study

Abstract

Go/No‐Go tasks, which require participants to inhibit automatic responses to images of palatable foods, have shown diagnostic value in quantifying food‐related impulses. Moreover, they have shown potential for training to control impulsive eating. To test the hypothesis that training modulates early neural markers of response inhibition, the current study investigated how the N2 event‐related brain potential to high‐ and low‐calorie food images changes along Go‐/No‐Go training and how the N2 is related to later eating behavior. 50 healthy adults, (mBMI = 23.01) first completed a food Go/No‐Go task in which high‐ and low‐calorie food images were accompanied by Go‐and No‐Go‐cues with equal frequency. Participants then completed a training block in which high‐calorie foods were predominantly paired with a No‐Go cue and the low‐calorie foods with a Go cue, followed by a block with reversed coupling (order of the training blocks counterbalanced between participants). After each training, there was a snacking opportunity during which calorie intake was measured. Against our preregistered hypotheses, the N2‐amplitudes were not significantly affected by the calorie‐content and there was no training‐related modulation in the N2. In addition , food intake was not influenced by the preceding training blocks and the N2 amplitude did not predict the food intake. Our study suggests that the link between N2 obtained in a food‐related Go/No‐Go task and impulse control is not clear‐cut and may be limited to specific task characteristics. The results are of high importance as they question the previously assumed mechanism of Go/No‐Go training in food‐related inhibitory control.

Pilot study of food-specific go/no-go training for overweight individuals: brain imaging data suggest inhibition shapes food evaluation

“…In line with this, three previous studies have investigated electrophysiological underpinnings of this phenomena but reached inconsistent conclusions ( van de Vijver et al. , 2018 ; Aulbach et al. , 2020 ; Carbine et al.…”

“…(2018) found that after a go/no-go training, larger increases in theta power at frontal midline electrodes were present upon presentation of food pictures previously associated with a no-go response. However, the two remaining studies showed that neither single session nor multiple sessions of a food-specific go/no-go training affected food-related N2 event-related potential (ERP) response (an indicator of inhibitory control processes) to go- or no-go trials after training ( Aulbach et al. , 2020 ; Carbine et al.…”

The evidential value of research on cognitive training to change food‐related biases and unhealthy eating behavior: A systematic review and p‐curve analysis

“…After screening the titles and abstracts of all the entries, 38 full texts were examined, but 17 were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Thus, 21 articles were added for analyses to those already identified by Forcano et al 23 Among the 45 selected articles, 13,17,19,20,21,30–69 12 included multiple studies, we therefore considered the results of 61 studies, (mean sample size = 115.84, SD = 109.53; range = 18–561).…”

The impact of exercise intensity on neurophysiological indices of food-related inhibitory control and cognitive control: A randomized crossover event-related potential (ERP) study

“…These results suggest an increased need for inhibitory control neural resources when inhibiting a response towards high-calorie foods. Similar to the N2, P3 amplitude becomes larger (i.e., more positive) when inhibiting towards high-calorie foods compared to low-calorie foods (see also Aulbach et al, 2020;Carbine et al, 2017;Carbine et al, 2018a), again suggesting increased cognitive control when inhibiting to high-calorie foods.…”