Devaluation insensitivity of event related potentials associated with food cues

Eating in the absence of hunger represents a failure of homeostatic mechanisms responsible for energy balance and is a cause of obesity. The pervasive presence of food cues in the modern environment may play a role in this phenomenon. The present study used the technique of satiety-specific selective devaluation to investigate eating in the absence of hunger in the context of a reinforcement learning task. While participants’ performance on the task suggested that food on which they had sated no longer held value for them, event related potentials following images of the food were unaffected by the devaluation. Food cues may thus serve as an entry point for over-eating in otherwise healthy individuals.