Reward responses to vicarious feeding depend on body mass index

• Published in: Cognitive, affective, & behavioral neuroscience Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 607 - 617
• Main Authors: Järvinen, Lili, Santavirta, Severi, Putkinen, Vesa, Karlsson, Henry K., Seppälä, Kerttu, Sun, Lihua, Hudson, Matthew, Hirvonen, Jussi, Nuutila, Pirjo, Nummenmaa, Lauri
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.06.2025; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Affect (Psychology); Appetite; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Body Mass Index; Brain; Brain - blood supply; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Cognitive Psychology; Eating - physiology; Eating - psychology; Feeding Behavior - physiology; Feeding Behavior - psychology; Female; Food; Food preferences; Hemodynamics; Humans; Hunger; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Meals; Medical imaging; Mental disorders; Mental health; Metabolism; Neostriatum; Nervous system; Neuroimaging; Neurosciences; Obesity; Photic Stimulation; Prefrontal cortex; Psychology; Reinforcement; Research Article; Reward; Somatosensory cortex; Young Adult; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Body mass index; Obesity; Vicarious; Emotion; Feeding
• ISSN: 1530-7026; 1531-135X; 1531-135X
• DOI: 10.3758/s13415-025-01265-5

Eating is inherently social for humans. Yet, most neuroimaging studies of appetite and food-induced reward have focused on studying brain responses to food intake or viewing pictures of food alone. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure haemodynamic responses to “vicarious” feeding. The subjects (n = 97) viewed series of short videos representing naturalistic episodes of social eating intermixed with videos without feeding/appetite-related content. Viewing the vicarious feeding (versus control) videos activated motor and premotor cortices, thalamus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, consistent with somatomotor and affective engagement. Responses to the feeding videos were negatively correlated with the participants’ body mass index. Altogether these results suggest that seeing others eating engages the corresponding motor and affective programs in the viewers’ brain, potentially increasing appetite and promoting mutual feeding.