Clinical trial NCT02347527: Neuronal and Behavioral Effects of Implicit Priming in Obese Individuals
Official title: Neuronal and Behavioral Effects of Implicit Priming in Obese Individuals
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Feeding Behavior
Obesity
Overweight
Lead sponsor: University of Colorado, Denver
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
First posted: 2015-01-27
Enrollment: 92
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 21
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: The "MRI sample" and "Behavioral-only sample" involve separate participants who complete the same intervention (assigned to either active or control groups), but the "MRI sample" also completed MRI outcomes and a food intake outcome that the "Behavioral-only sample" did not.
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The overall goals of this project are to determine the impact of an implicit priming intervention, designed to alter food perceptions, on both brain responses to food and on food intake behaviors in overweight/obese individuals. The investigators hypothesized that this bottom-up sensory-level conditioning approach would effectively result in reduced preference for high-calorie foods.

Detailed description: One factor that may contribute to susceptibility to obesity is a high responsivity to high-calorie foods in terms of cognitive factors such as emotional associations, reward value or reinforcing properties of food. Many of these processes involve learned associations thought to develop via classical conditioning through repeated pairings with external stimuli, which can influence food preferences and intake. As such, improving our understanding of the neuronal mechanisms underlying these processes and attempting to modify them may be a useful strategy to promote weight loss and maintenance. Therefore, the proposed study aims to investigate the effects of altering food perception on neuronal responses and food intake behaviors by using implicit priming, in which positively or negatively valenced images are presented immediately prior to food images, but are not consciously perceived.

The project goals are to determine the impact of the implicit priming intervention on both brain responses to food cues and on food intake behaviors in overweight/obese individuals. Food image ratings were assessed before and after either (a) an active implicit priming intervention or (b) a control intervention. One group of participants (n = 47; "MRI sample") completed the intervention during an fMRI scan and completed a visual food cues task both before and after the intervention (during fMRI), to assess intervention-related change in neuronal responses to food cues. In this group, food intake measures were also taken following fMRI. In a separate group of participants (n = 45; "Behavioral-only sample"), the primary outcome measure was the change in food image ratings from pre- to post-intervention; fMRI and measures of food intake were not assessed in this group.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Overweight/obese adults
* Healthy weight adults

Exclusion Criteria:

* Vegetarian, vegan, or having other wide-ranging food restrictions
* Currently dieting
* MRI exclusion criteria, if in MRI sample (e.g., claustrophobia, metal in the body)

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Food Image Ratings
timeFrame: Baseline to within 10 minutes post-intervention
measure: Neuronal Response to Food Cues
timeFrame: Baseline to post-intervention
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Food Intake
timeFrame: 1 hour post-intervention
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Aurora
country: United States
facility: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
state: Colorado
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Colorado, Denver
name: Jason R Tregellas, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of Colorado, Denver
name: Kristina T Legget, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Legget KT, Cornier MA, Erpelding C, Lawful BP, Bear JJ, Kronberg E, Tregellas JR. An implicit priming intervention alters brain and behavioral responses to high-calorie foods: a randomized controlled study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022 Apr 1;115(4):1194-1204. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/nqac009.
citation: Legget KT, Cornier MA, Rojas DC, Lawful B, Tregellas JR. Harnessing the power of disgust: a randomized trial to reduce high-calorie food appeal through implicit priming. Am J Clin Nutr. 2015 Aug;102(2):249-55. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.106955. Epub 2015 Jun 24.