Subliminal fear priming potentiates negative facial reactions to food pictures in women with anorexia nervosa.
BACKGROUND
To investigate hedonic reactivity and the influence of unconscious emotional processes on the low sensitivity to positive reinforcement of food in anorexia nervosa (AN).


METHODS
AN and healthy women were exposed to palatable food pictures just after a subliminal exposure to facial expressions (happy, disgust, fear and neutral faces), either while fasting or after a standardized meal (hunger versus satiety). Both implicit [facial electromyographic (EMG) activity from zygomatic and corrugator muscles, skin conductance, heart rate, and videotaped facial behavior] and explicit (self-reported pleasure and desire) measures of affective processes were recorded.


RESULTS
In contrast to healthy women, the AN patients did not display objective and subjective indices of pleasure to food pictures when they were in the hunger states. Pleasure to food cues (liking) was more affected than the desire to eat (wanting) in AN patients. Subliminal 'fear faces' increased corrugator muscle reactivity to food stimuli in fasting AN patients, as compared to controls.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that unconscious fear cues increase the negative appraisal of alimentary stimuli in AN patients and thus contribute to decreased energy intake.
Soussignan
R
R
Centre Européen des Sciences du GoUt, CNRS (UMR 5170), Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France. soussignan@cesg.cnrs.fr
Jiang
T
T
Rigaud
D
D
Royet
J P
JP
Schaal
B
B
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D003463:Cues; D004576:Electromyography / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D006815:Hunger; D009042:Motivation; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D057181:Pleasure; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012527:Satiation; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception