The human brain can naturally evaluate the calorie content of food items, reveals a latest neuroimaging study.
Various types of food items are available in supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and more. However, different people have different preferences and they may not pick and consume the same type of food. Even with diverse choice of foods, previous studies have revealed that children as well as adults are inclined to select food items that are rich in calorie.
Alain Dagher, a neurologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, who is also the lead author of the study suggests that low cost of food items rich in calories and easy availability has been previously blamed for a spike in the obesity rate in the U.S. The consumption of high calorie food items is mainly ruled by the projected effects of the food items that people learn via experience. Dagher also suggests that the latest study found that the brain is able to track the calorie contents of food.
The latest study involved 29 healthy members, who were showed 50 pictures of familiar food items. The participants were asked to rate the food items on a 1 to 20 scale and were also asked to guess the calorie value of individual food items.
The study found that the participants very inaccurate to estimate the calorie content of individual food items shows. However, when they were given a chance to bid for a chance to purchase and consume a food item they selected an item with high caloric content.
"Results of functional brain scans acquired while participants looked at the food images showed that activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area known to encode the value of stimuli and predict immediate consumption, was also correlated with the foods' true caloric content," per the press release of the study.
The food rating on the 1 to 20 scale by the participants were linked to the activity in the part of the brain called insula. This region of the brain is associated to process the sensory characteristics of food.
Dagher suggests that the understanding the details for an individual's food choice may assist researchers to determine the dynamics of some medical conditions such as obesity. A major chunk of Americans suffer from obesity that can lead to other medical issues such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, and more.
The study has been published in the journal Psychological Science.
