Scientists at the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems
Research at the University of Zurich researched the role of stress in relation
to diet.
Stress is already liked to health problems and weight gain
but the scientists wanted to look at how stress drives you to your coworker’s
candy dish versus the apple you packed.
Mild stress may send the most disciplined eater to the vending
machine.
The study “Acute Stress
Impairs Self-Control in Goal-Directed Choice by Altering Multiple Functional
Connections within the Brain’s Decision Circuits” looks at how stressful
circumstances can compromise one’s self-regulatory behavior.
The scientists took 51 young men and divided
them into two groups where one served as a control.
The participants were asked to look at images
of food on a screen and rate them for taste and healthfulness.
The men in the experimental group were put
under “stress.” Basically putting their
hand in cold water to induce mild stress (this increased their cortisol
compared to the control group who did not have this done). The scientists did fMRIs following dress,
they found “… that stress increased the influence of immediately rewarding
taste attributes on choice and reduced self-control.
This choice pattern was
accompanied by increased functional connectivity between ventromedial
prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala and striatal regions encoding tastiness”
(Maier, Makwana, Hare, 2015).
Lead author on the study Todd Hare reported “think about an
action path that improves your choice… If you know you will have a hard time
resisting don’t store snacks at home.”
You can also find this study on The New York Times Well blog: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/candy-brain/
