Plastic brain mechanisms supporting reduction in cravings induced by response training

Recent evidence indicates that interventions involving the repeated inhibition of motor responses to environmental cues reduce brain reward responses and craving for these cues, and in turn their consumption. Such approaches have been put forward as a promising solution to unhealthy food overconsumption. Yet, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying inhibition training to reduce reward responses remain largely unknown. We addressed those questions in a within-participant pre-post intervention study examining how target stimuli (Go)/non-target stimuli (NoGo) training reduces implicit motivational and electrophysiological activity to trained sugary drink cues. We then examined whether computational indices of Pavlovian and other reinforcement learning biases moderate the efficacy of the training, to test how inhibition training involves learning mechanisms. In addition to replicating evidence for a reduction in explicit cue valuation with Go/NoGo training, our results identified the N2 event-related potentials (ERP) component as modulated by the training, and individual Pavlovian biases as moderators of training efficacy. These findings point to inhibitory control and associative devaluation as the neurophysiological mechanisms supporting the effect of Go/NoGo training on cue valuation, and a contribution of Pavlovian learning in these processes.