Inhibition Ability of Food Cues between Successful and Unsuccessful Restrained Eaters: A Two-Choice Oddball Task

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have presented mixed findings on the inhibition ability in restrained eaters (REs) due to the limited amount of neural evidence and limitations of behavioral measures. The current study explores the neural correlations of the specific inhibition ability among successful restrained eaters (S-REs), unsuccessful restrained eaters (US-REs), and unrestrained eaters (UREs). METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Three groups of females (with 13 participants in each group) completed a two-choice Oddball task, while the event-related potentials (ERPs) are recorded synchronously. Results indicate that S-REs showed inhibition deficit in processing high-energy food cues whereas US-REs show inhibition deficit in processing both low- and high-energy food cues. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that S-REs and US-REs differ in terms of specific inhibition ability and that enhanced inhibition is essential to a successful diet.