Fasting may increase incentive signaling for nonfood rewards

During acute energy deprivation, hunger signaling mechanisms support homeostasis by enhancing incentive for food. There is some evidence (primarily based on nonhuman experiments) that fasting heightens incentive signaling for nonfood reward as well. We hypothesized that, consistent with results from research in rodent and nonhuman primates, human participants would evidence increased incentive-related brain activity for nonfood rewards during fast (relative to satiety) and that this increase would be heightened when available rewards were immediate. To assess these possibilities, healthy participants with body mass index between 18 and 29 kg/m² completed a task which engaged participants in opportunities to win immediate and delayed money (Monetary Incentive Delay Task) during 2 neuroimaging sessions (1 postprandial, 1 fasted). Analyses of participants (N = 18 included, body mass index 22.12± 2.72, age 21.39± 3.52) focused on brain activity during the incentive window of the task. Region of interest, as well as whole-brain analyses, supported the hypothesized increase in incentive signaling during fasting in regions that included caudate and putamen. No evidence of interaction was observed between fasting and the effect of reward immediacy or reward magnitude. Although provisional given the modest sample size, these results suggest that acute fasting can heighten incentive signaling for nonfood rewards.