The consumption of indulgent, carbohydrate- and fat-rich foods is often used as a strategy to cope with negative affect because they provide immediate self-reward. Such dietary choices, however, can severely affect people’s health. One countermeasure could be to improve one’s emotion regulation ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural activity underlying the downregulation of incidental emotions and its effect on subsequent food choices. We investigated whether emotion regulation leads to healthier food choices and how emotion regulation interacts with the brain’s valuation and decision-making circuitry. We found that 1) the downregulation of incidental negative emotions was associated with a subsequent selective increase in decisions for tasty but also for healthy foods, 2) food preferences were predicted by palatability but also by the current emotional state, and 3) emotion regulation modulated decision-related activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. These results indicate that emotional states are indeed important for food choice and that the process of emotion regulation might boost the subsequent processing of health attributes, possibly via neural reward circuits. In consequence, our findings suggest that increasing emotion regulation ability could effectively modulate food choices by stimulating an incidental upvaluation of health attributes.

中文翻译：

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情绪调节通过前额-纹状体评估系统中的活动调节饮食决策。

食用富含碳水化合物和脂肪的放纵食物通常被用作应对负面影响的策略，因为它们可以提供即时的自我奖励。然而，这种饮食选择会严重影响人们的健康。一种对策可能是提高一个人的情绪调节能力。我们使用功能性磁共振成像来检查偶然情绪下调背后的神经活动及其对后续食物选择的影响。我们调查了情绪调节是否会导致更健康的食物选择，以及情绪调节如何与大脑的评估和决策电路相互作用。我们发现 1) 偶然负面情绪的下调与随后对美味和健康食品的决定的选择性增加有关，2) 食物偏好通过适口性和当前的情绪状态来预测，和 3) 情绪调节调节腹内侧前额叶皮层和腹侧纹状体中与决策相关的激活。这些结果表明情绪状态对于食物选择确实很重要，情绪调节过程可能会促进健康属性的后续处理，可能是通过神经奖励回路。因此，我们的研究结果表明，增加情绪调节能力可以通过刺激健康​​属性的偶然升值来有效地调节食物选择。这些结果表明情绪状态对于食物选择确实很重要，情绪调节过程可能会促进健康属性的后续处理，可能是通过神经奖励回路。因此，我们的研究结果表明，增加情绪调节能力可以通过刺激健康​​属性的偶然升值来有效地调节食物选择。这些结果表明情绪状态对于食物选择确实很重要，情绪调节过程可能会促进健康属性的后续处理，可能是通过神经奖励回路。因此，我们的研究结果表明，增加情绪调节能力可以通过刺激健康​​属性的偶然升值来有效地调节食物选择。