If you’ve ever cursed your lack of willpower, you might take heart from the latest research into how self-control works in the brain with regards to cravings for food. Experts have uncovered two areas of the brain that seem to work together, allowing some people to exercise self control when it comes to food choices, while the rest of us appear to have little (or no) ability to suppress cravings.
A team of investigators used MRI scans to look at the brains of subjects who were viewing pictures of different foods and deciding which to eat.
This rather innovative experiment involved a group of volunteers, all dieters, who were shown pictures of 50 foods, everything from candy bars to Jell-O to veggies.
The subjects had to rate the foods based on how good they’d taste and then looked at the photos again to rate each food’s benefits to health.
Once they had this data, the investigators chose an index food for each of the volunteers. This was a food, that for them, fell in the middle of the pack in terms of taste and healthiness.
The subjects were then shown the 50 foods a last time and asked to choose between these or the index food. Each time the volunteers saw the photos they were inside an MRI scanner so that blood oxygen level dependent signals to specific parts of the brain could be measured.
Once the scans had been completed, the team identified 19 subjects who showed a significant amount of self-control in food choices, and another 18 who were the opposite and able to employ very little self-control.
These subjects picked the tastiest food all the time, no matter what the health benefits, or lack of them.
When the researchers compared the MRI scans of the two groups they saw noticeable differences in the brain activity of the self-control group vs. those with no self-control.
It seems that while every dieter uses the same area of the brain (known to science as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex or vmPFC) to make decisions about a food to eat, another region of the brain (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or DLPFC) helps to modify this activity, giving you the ability to say “No”.
The Caltech team found that the vmPFC is active during every decision; DLPFC is more active when a subject is exercising self-control.
The Caltech researchers found that if activity in the vmPFC went down it was likely the subject would say “No” to the food, and if it went up, they’d likely choose the item.
With those who had good self-control that second area of the brain, the DLPFC was what became active and allowed the person to think beyond taste in making the decision.
“After centuries of debate in social sciences we are finally making big strides in understanding self-control from watching the brain resist temptation directly,” points out Colin Camerer, the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics in Caltech’s Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, also coauthor of the research.
The next step is to try an engage the DLPFC in the decision making process of those with poor self control and sort of kick starting the willpower for those who need it.
This could help dieters everywhere look beyond food cravings of taste and immediate satisfaction and think about longer-term goals like improved health or weight loss.
Next just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for more information on simple ways to manage any cravings for food plus get 5 free fantastic health reports.