title: Oxytocin enhances cognitive control of food craving in women.
abstract: In developed countries, obesity has become an epidemic resulting in enormous health care costs for society and serious medical complications for individuals. The homeostatic regulation of food intake is critically dependent on top-down control of reward-driven food craving. There is accumulating evidence from animal studies that the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) is involved in regulating hunger states and eating behavior, but whether OXT also contributes to cognitive control of food craving in humans is still unclear. We conducted a counter-balanced, double-blind, within-subject, pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging experiment involving 31 healthy women who received 24 IU of intranasal OXT or placebo and were scanned twice while they were exposed to pictures of palatable food. The participants were instructed either to imagine the immediate consumption or to cognitively control the urge to eat the food. Our results show a trend that OXT specifically reduced food craving in the cognitive control condition. On the neural level, these findings were paralleled by an increase of activity in the middle and superior frontal gyrus, precuneus, and cingulate cortex under OXT. Interestingly, the behavioral OXT effect correlated with the OXT-induced changes in the prefrontal cortex and precuneus. Collectively, the present study provides first evidence that OXT plays a key role in the cognitive regulation of food craving in women by strengthening activity in a broad neurocircuitry implicated in top-down control and self-referential processing. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4276-4285, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.|Division of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Striepens
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.|Division of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Franziska
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schröter
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Stoffel-Wagner
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.|German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), 53175, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Maier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.|Division of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hurlemann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.|Division of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, 53105, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Scheele
mesh_terms: D000281:Administration, Intranasal; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects; D066249:Craving / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D004435:Eating / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D056344:Executive Function / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D006706:Homeostasis / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs; D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: craving; emotion regulation; food; functional magnetic resonance imaging; oxytocin; women