ORCID

Abstract

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.

Publication Date

2025-02-18

Publication Title

Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience

Volume

25

Issue

3

ISSN

1530-7026

Acceptance Date

2025-01-10

Deposit Date

2025-02-20

Funding

Open Access funding provided by University of Turku (including Turku University Central Hospital). The study was supported by the Sigrid Juselius Foundation and Academy of Finland (grants numbers 294897 and 332225) to LN, Turku University Foundation and Alfred Kordelin Foundation grants to SS and Finnish Governmental Research Funding for Turku University Hospital and for the Western Finland collaborative area to SS.

Keywords

Adult, Body Mass Index, Brain Mapping, Brain/physiology, Eating/psychology, Feeding Behavior/physiology, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Reward, Young Adult

First Page

607

Last Page

617

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