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Updated: Jun 21, 2026
Control of Eating Behavior Using a Novel Feedback System
Published on: May 8, 2018
Frontal attentional responses to food size are abnormal in obese subjects: an electroencephalographic study
Claudio Babiloni1, Claudio Del Percio, Anna Valenzano
1Department of Biomedical Sciences, Bioagromed, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy. c.babiloni@unifg.it
Objective:
Are obese subjects characterized by a reduction of attentional cortical responses to the enlargement of food or body images?
Methods:
Electroencephalographic data were recorded in 19 obese and 15 normal-weight adults during an "oddball" paradigm. The subjects were given frequent (70%) and rare (30%) stimuli depicting faces (FACE), food (FOOD), and landscapes (CONTROL), and clicked the mouse after the rare stimuli. These stimuli depicted the same frequent stimuli graphically dilated by 25% along the horizontal axis. Bioelectrical impedance indexed subjects' body fat percentage. Cortical attentional responses were probed by the difference between positive event-related potentials peaking around 400-500ms post-stimulus for the rare minus frequent stimuli (P300). Low resolution electromagnetic source tomography (LORETA) estimated P300 sources.
Results:
In the FOOD condition, the amplitude of medial prefrontal P300 sources (Brodmann area 9) was lower in the obese than normal-weight subjects, and there was a negative correlation between the body fat percentage and the amplitude of these sources in all subjects as a single group.
Conclusions:
These results disclose that prefrontal attentional processes to food size are abnormal in obese subjects.
Significance:
The present study motivates future research evaluating the effects of cognitive rehabilitation in obese subjects.
