NCT03976427

Translating Neuroscience to Population Health

Changing How the Brain Responds When Making Decisions: Translating Neuroscience to Population Health

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 20 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Kansas Medical Center · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The current study will examine the relationship between brain responses and a guided imagery exercise in overweight and obese individuals. Results of this work are highly relevant to public health because they employ neuroimaging methods to understand food decision-making. Findings from this study will inform health decision making and holds great potential for future translation across multiple health behaviors and scalable interventions to impact population health

Detailed description

Negative health behaviors (e.g. overeating, smoking) are associated with increased negative health outcomes. Engaging in healthy behaviors is not always rewarding (e.g. carrot vs. cake). Neural models of healthy behaviors focus on the balance between reward and regulation brain regions. The current pilot application examines the engagement of these regions during the evaluation of food and nonfood cues before and after a guided imagery exercise targeting positive associations with food and regulation. The long-term goal is to understand the interaction between positive associations with healthy foods and thinking about future rewards may influence healthy decision-making. The objective of the current study is to empirically test the combined effects of positive affect and positive episodic future thinking on brain activation.

Conditions

• Overweight and Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Guided Imagery	The guided imagery exercise asks participants to think about positive associations with healthy foods and imagine their future healthy selves.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-04-24
• Primary completion: 2019-07-11
• Completion: 2019-07-11
• First posted: 2019-06-06
• Last updated: 2019-08-05

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States