Beer is a popular alcoholic beverage worldwide. Nonalcoholic beer (NA-beer) is increasingly marketed. Brain responses to beer and NA-beer have not been compared. It could be that the flavor of beer constitutes a conditioned stimulus associated with alcohol reward. Therefore, we investigated whether oral exposure to NA-beer with or without alcohol elicits similar brain responses in reward-related areas in a context where regular alcoholic beer is expected. Healthy men (n = 21) who were regular beer drinkers were scanned using functional MRI. Participants were exposed to word cues signaling delivery of a 10-mL sip of chilled beer or carbonated water (control) and subsequent sips of NA-beer with or without alcohol or water (control). Beer alcohol content was not signaled. The beer cue elicited less activation than the control cue in the primary visual cortex, supplementary motor area (reward-related region) and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus/frontal operculum. During tasting, there were no significant differences between the 2 beers. Taste activation after swallowing was significantly greater for alcoholic than for NA-beer in the inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula and dorsal prefrontal cortex (superior frontal gyrus). This appears to be due to sensory stimulation by ethanol rather than reward processing. In conclusion, we found no differences in acute brain reward upon consumption of NA-beer with and without alcohol, when presented in a context where regular alcoholic beer is expected. This suggests that in regular consumers, beer flavor rather than the presence of alcohol is the main driver of the consumption experience.

中文翻译：

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有无酒精对啤酒的预期和消费的大脑反应。

啤酒是全球流行的酒精饮料。非酒精啤酒（NA-beer）的市场越来越多。尚未比较大脑对啤酒和NA-啤酒的反应。啤酒的味道可能构成了与酒精奖励相关的条件刺激。因此，我们调查了在预期饮用普通酒精啤酒的情况下，口服暴露于含有或不含酒精的NA-啤酒是否会在奖励相关领域引起类似的大脑反应。使用功能性MRI对健康的男性（n = 21）经常喝啤酒的男性进行了扫描。参与者暴露在提示信号下，表示饮入10毫升的冰镇啤酒或碳酸水（对照组），以及随后饮入的NA啤酒（有或没有酒精或水）（对照组）。没有发出啤酒酒精含量的信号。在主要视觉皮层，辅助运动区（与奖励有关的区域）和双侧下额回/额中，啤酒提示引起的激活少于对照提示。在品尝期间，两种啤酒之间没有显着差异。酒后下额回/前岛和背额前皮层（上额回）的酒精吞咽后味觉活化明显高于NA-啤酒。这似乎是由于乙醇的感官刺激而不是奖励处理。总而言之，我们发现，在预期使用普通酒精啤酒的情况下，饮用含或不含酒精的NA-啤酒时，急性大脑奖赏没有差异。这表明，在普通消费者中，