Inhibitory control mediates the effect of high intensity interval exercise on food choice.

Exercise is associated with changes in food consumption and cognitive function. The aim of this study was to examine the immediate effects of acute exercise on appetite, food choices, and cognitive processes, and the mediating role of cognitive functioning, namely inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and decision making. We compared the effects of high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) to a resting condition on appetite and food choices, using visual analogue rating scales and a computerised portion selection task.

When a test is more than just a test: Findings from patient interviews and survey in the trial of a technology to measure antidepressant medication response (the PReDicT Trial).

Background: A RCT of a novel intervention to detect antidepressant medication response (the PReDicT Test) took place in five European countries, accompanied by a nested study of its acceptability and implementation presented here. The RCT results indicated no effect of the intervention on depression at 8 weeks (primary outcome), although effects on anxiety at 8 weeks and functioning at 24 weeks were found.

Methods: The nested study used mixed methods.

Interoceptive accuracy mediates the longitudinal relationship between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inattentive symptoms and disordered eating in a community sample.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms are associated with disordered eating and interoceptive deficits (as assessed by reliance on hunger/satiety cues) have been suggested as a potential mediating influence. The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine whether the association between ADHD symptoms and disordered eating is explained by deficits in specific facets of interoception. We also aimed to provide further evidence on the previously reported association between ADHD symptoms, negative mood and disordered eating.

Utility of an experimental medicine model to evaluate efficacy, side-effects and mechanism of action of novel treatments for obesity and binge-eating disorder.

Obesity and Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) are prevalent conditions that are associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. There is evidence that the use of pharmacotherapy alongside behavioural treatments can improve quality of life and reduce disease risk for patients with these disorders. However, there are few approved drug therapies for obesity, and these are limited by poor efficacy and/or side effects and only one drug has been approved for the treatment of BED.

The effect of intranasal insulin on appetite and mood in women with and without obesity: an experimental medicine study.

Background/objectives: Intranasal (IN) administration of insulin decreases appetite in humans, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear, and it is unknown whether IN insulin affects the food intake of women with obesity.

Subjects/methods: In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, participants (35 lean women and 17 women with obesity) were randomized to receive 160 IU/1.6 mL of IN insulin or placebo in a counterbalanced order in the post prandial state.

Validation of the P1vital® Faces Set for Use as Stimuli in Tests of Facial Emotion Recognition.

Background: Negative bias in facial emotion recognition is a well-established concept in mental disorders such as depression. However, existing face sets of emotion recognition tests may be of limited use in international research, which could benefit from more contemporary and diverse alternatives. Here, we developed and provide initial validation for the P1vital® Affective Faces set (PAFs) as a contemporary alternative to the widely-used Pictures of Facial Affect (PoFA).

The effects of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate on eating behaviour and homeostatic, reward and cognitive processes in women with binge-eating symptoms: an experimental medicine study.

Lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (LDX) is the only drug currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of Binge-Eating Disorder (BED), but little is known about the behavioural mechanisms that underpin the efficacy of LDX in treating BED. We examined the behavioural and neural effects of an acute dose of LDX (50 mg) in 22 women with binge-eating symptomatology using a randomised, crossover, double-blind, placebo-controlled experimental medicine design. LDX reduced self-reported appetite ratings and intake of both a pasta meal and a palatable cookie snack.

Lisdexamfetamine and binge-eating disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the preclinical and clinical data with a focus on mechanism of drug action in treating the disorder.

Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) is the most common eating disorder in the United States. Lisdexamfetamine (LDX) was approved in 2015 by the FDA for treatment of BED and is the only drug approved for treating the disorder. There has been no systematic evaluation of the published clinical and preclinical evidence for efficacy of LDX in treating BED and the mechanisms responsible for the therapeutic action of the drug.

The clinical effectiveness of using a predictive algorithm to guide antidepressant treatment in primary care (PReDicT): an open-label, randomised controlled trial.

Depressed patients often do not respond to the first antidepressant prescribed, resulting in sequential trials of different medications. Personalised medicine offers a means of reducing this delay; however, the clinical effectiveness of personalised approaches to antidepressant treatment has not previously been tested. We assessed the clinical effectiveness of using a predictive algorithm, based on behavioural tests of affective cognition and subjective symptoms, to guide antidepressant treatment.

Associations between inattention and impulsivity ADHD symptoms and disordered eating risk in a community sample of young adults.

Background: Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and trait impulsivity have been associated with disordered eating but are seldom assessed in community studies, or longitudinally and little is known about the mediating mechanisms.

Methods: We tested associations between ADHD symptoms and disordered eating cross-sectionally and between trait impulsivity and disordered eating longitudinally. We utilised data from a normative cohort of young adults (642 participants: 65% female, = 23 years).

Value of monitoring negative emotional bias in primary care in England for personalised antidepressant treatment: a modelling study.

Background: Depressed patients often focus on negative life events. Effective antidepressant therapy reverses this negative emotional bias (NEB) within 1 week. Clinical therapeutic effect usually requires 4-6 weeks.

Interoception and disordered eating: A systematic review.

Deficits in interoception have been associated with disordered eating but there has been no systematic review of whether the interoceptive deficits are observed across all types of disordered eating and across interoceptive modalities. There has also been no evaluation of whether deficits in interoception play a causal role in the development of disordered eating. Nor has there been a review of the moderating/mediating factors of the relationship between interoception and disordered eating.

Predicting treatment response to antidepressant medication using early changes in emotional processing.

Antidepressants must be taken for weeks before response can be assessed with many patients not responding to the first medication prescribed. This often results in long delays before effective treatment is started. Antidepressants induce changes in the processing of emotional stimuli early in the course of treatment.

Top-down guidance of attention to food cues is enhanced in individuals with overweight/obesity and predicts change in weight at one-year follow up.

Background: Changing eating behaviour may be challenging for individuals with obesity and this may be related to attentional bias towards food. Previous paradigms used to assess attentional bias to food stimuli have not distinguished between bottom-up processes related to assessment of rewarding stimuli versus top-down processes related to effects of mind-set on attention. We investigated whether attentional bias for food cues varies between individuals with overweight/obesity and healthy weight individuals, due to differential top-down control of attention.

Associations Between Core Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Both Binge and Restrictive Eating.

Introduction: It is unclear whether core symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) relate to specific types of disordered eating and little is known about the mediating mechanisms. We investigated associations between core symptoms of ADHD and binge/disinhibited eating and restrictive eating behavior and assessed whether negative mood and/or deficits in awareness and reliance on internal hunger/satiety cues mediate these relationships.

Methods: In two independent studies, we used a dimensional approach to study ADHD and disordered eating.

The effects of using the PReDicT Test to guide the antidepressant treatment of depressed patients: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Antidepressant medication is commonly used to treat depression. However, many patients do not respond to the first medication prescribed and improvements in symptoms are generally only detectable by clinicians 4-6 weeks after the medication has been initiated. As a result, there is often a long delay between the decision to initiate an antidepressant medication and the identification of an effective treatment regimen.

The 5-HT receptor agonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) reduces palatable food consumption and BOLD fMRI responses to food images in healthy female volunteers.

Rationale: Brain 5-HT receptors form part of a neural network that controls eating behaviour. 5-HT receptor agonists decrease food intake by activating proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, but recent research in rodents has suggested that 5-HT receptor agonists may also act via dopaminergic circuitry to reduce the rewarding value of food and other reinforcers. No mechanistic studies on the effects of 5-HT agonists on food intake in humans have been conducted to date.

Interactions between metabolic, reward and cognitive processes in appetite control: Implications for novel weight management therapies.

Traditional models of appetite control have emphasised the role of parallel homeostatic and hedonic systems, but more recently the distinction between independent homeostatic and hedonic systems has been abandoned in favour of a framework that emphasises the cross talk between the neurochemical substrates of the two systems. In addition, evidence has emerged more recently, that higher level cognitive functions such as learning, memory and attention play an important role in everyday appetite control and that homeostatic signals also play a role in cognition. Here, we review this evidence and present a comprehensive model of the control of appetite that integrates cognitive, homeostatic and reward mechanisms.

Cognitive and oculomotor performance in subjects with low and high schizotypy: implications for translational drug development studies.

The development of drugs to improve cognition in patients with schizophrenia is a major unmet clinical need. A number of promising compounds failed in recent clinical trials, a pattern linked to poor translation between preclinical and clinical stages of drug development. Seeking proof of efficacy in early Phase 1 studies in surrogate patient populations (for example, high schizotypy individuals where subtle cognitive impairment is present) has been suggested as a strategy to reduce attrition in the later stages of drug development.

Comparing the actions of lanicemine and ketamine in depression: key role of the anterior cingulate.

Intravenous infusion of lanicemine (formerly AZD6765), a low trapping non-selective N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, induces antidepressant effects with a similar time course to ketamine. We investigated whether a single dose lanicemine infusion would reproduce the previously reported decrease in subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) activity evoked by ketamine, a potential mechanism of antidepressant efficacy. Sixty un-medicated adults meeting the criteria for major depressive disorder were randomly assigned to receive constant intravenous infusions of ketamine, lanicemine or saline during a 60min pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging (phMRI) scan.

Test-retest reliability and effects of repeated testing and satiety on performance of an Emotional Test Battery.

The P1vital® Oxford Emotional Test Battery (ETB) comprises five computerized tasks designed to assess cognition and emotional processing in human participants. It has been used in between-subjects experimental designs; however, it is unclear whether the battery can be used in crossover designs. This is of particular importance given the increasing use of ETB tasks for repeated assessment of depressed patients in clinical trials and clinical practice.

Investigating virtual reality navigation in amnestic mild cognitive impairment using fMRI.

Spatial navigation requires a well-established network of brain regions, including the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and retrosplenial cortex. Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) is a condition with predominantly memory impairment, conferring a high predictive risk factor for dementia. aMCI is associated with hippocampal atrophy and subtle deficits in spatial navigation.

Effects of awareness that food intake is being measured by a universal eating monitor on the consumption of a pasta lunch and a cookie snack in healthy female volunteers.

To date, there have been no studies that have explicitly examined the effect of awareness on the consumption of food from a Universal Eating Monitor (UEM - hidden balance interfaced to a computer which covertly records eating behaviour). We tested whether awareness of a UEM affected consumption of a pasta lunch and a cookie snack. 39 female participants were randomly assigned to either an aware or unaware condition.