A core eating network and its modulations underlie diverse eating phenomena

Abstract

Background: Multiple research literatures have examined the neural responses to food cues and actual eating in a variety of eating situations and populations. Our primary aim was to develop a theoretical framework that integrates the major findings across literatures to motivate evidence-based health interventions. Methods: We reviewed neuroimaging research on food cues and eating, focusing on effects of palatability, hunger, BMI, eating goals, and eating disorders. We established the brain areas active in different eating situations and populations, and organized the results around previously published system-level accounts of food processing in the brain. Findings: A core eating network and its modulations accounted for what is currently known about the neural activity underlying a wide range of eating phenomena, including a ventral reward pathway and a dorsal control pathway. Consistent with the theoretical perspective of grounded cognition, food cues activate eating simulations that produce reward predictions about a perceived food and potentially motivate its consumption. Palatability, hunger, BMI, eating goals, and eating disorders modulate the core eating network in predictable manners, increasing and/or decreasing activity in subsets of its neural areas. Discussion. By viewing diverse eating phenomena as modulating a common network, it becomes possible to understand how they are related to one another within a common theoretical framework. This framework has the potential to help health researchers understand a wide variety of healthy and unhealthy eating phenomena, and to motivate evidence-based interventions. We discuss future directions for better establishing the core eating network, its modulations, and their implications for behavior.