It's in the eye of the beholder: selective attention to drink properties during tasting influences brain activation in gustatory and reward regions.

Statements regarding pleasantness, taste intensity or caloric content on a food label may influence the attention consumers pay to such characteristics during consumption. There is little research on the effects of selective attention on taste perception and associated brain activation in regular drinks. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of selective attention on hedonics, intensity and caloric content on brain responses during tasting drinks.

Health interest modulates brain reward responses to a perceived low-caloric beverage in females.

Objective: Health labels are omnipresent in the supermarket. Such labels give rise to expectations about the product experience and may change flavor perception and perceived reward value. Consumers vary in their degree of health interest and may be differentially affected by such labels.

Supersize my brain: A cross-sectional voxel-based morphometry study on the association between self-reported dietary restraint and regional grey matter volumes.

Restrained eaters do not eat less than their unrestrained counterparts. Proposed underlying mechanisms are that restrained eaters are more reward sensitive and that they have worse inhibitory control. Although fMRI studies assessed these mechanisms, it is unknown how brain anatomy relates to dietary restraint.

Neural Processing of Calories in Brain Reward Areas Can be Modulated by Reward Sensitivity.

A food's reward value is dependent on its caloric content. Furthermore, a food's acute reward value also depends on hunger state. The drive to obtain rewards (reward sensitivity), however, differs between individuals.

Tasting calories differentially affects brain activation during hunger and satiety.

An important function of eating is ingesting energy. Our objectives were to assess whether oral exposure to caloric and non-caloric stimuli elicits discriminable responses in the brain and to determine in how far these responses are modulated by hunger state and sweetness. Thirty women tasted three stimuli in two motivational states (hunger and satiety) while their brain responses were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a randomized crossover design.

Effect of replacing sugar with non-caloric sweeteners in beverages on the reward value after repeated exposure.

Background: The reward value of food is partly dependent on learned associations. It is not yet known whether replacing sugar with non-caloric sweeteners in food is affecting long-term acceptance.

Objective: To determine the effect of replacing sugar with non-caloric sweeteners in a nutrient-empty drink (soft drink) versus nutrient-rich drink (yoghurt drink) on reward value after repeated exposure.