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Category: Hypothesis

Description: Aim 1: A) To examine and compare how food responsivity and impulsivity are associated with neural response to food images. B) To examine and compare how food responsivity and impulsivity are related to weight retention at 1 y postpartum. Hypothesis 1: A) Subjects who exhibit higher food responsivity will be more impulsive and show heightened response to pictures of highly palatable foods in the visual cortex and in brain regions associated with reward and motivation (OFC, ACC, amygdala, striatum). B) High food responsivity, impulsivity, and increased neural activity to highly palatable food pictures will be indicative of a weight gain phenotype, and these subjects will show increased weight gain at 1 y post partum. Aim 2: To examine and compare how negative prediction error reward-learning sensitivity at six months predicts ad libitum intake of milkshake and weight status in postpartum women 1 y postpartum. Hypothesis 2: Individuals who exhibit hyposensitivity to negative prediction error will consume more of the palatable milkshake in an ad libitum setting and will more frequently taste test the sub-palatable milkshake. Weight gain at 1 y postpartum will be associated with insensitivity to negative prediction error reward learning in the striatum. While weight gain will be associated with heightened response to reward cues, but will be insensitive to negative prediction error.