Valence Encoding Signals in the Human Amygdala and the Willingness to Eat

One of the strongest drivers of food consumption is pleasure, and with a large variety of palatable food continuously available, there is rarely any necessity to eat something not tasty. The amygdala is involved in hedonic valuation, but its role in valence assignment during food choices is less understood. Given recent evidence for spatially segregated amygdala signatures encoding palatability, we applied a multivariate approach on fMRI data to extract valence-specific signal patterns during an explicit evaluation of food liking. These valence localizers were then used to identify hedonic valuation processes while the same healthy human participants (14 female, 16 male; in overnight fasted state on both scanning days) performed a willingness-to-eat task in a separate fMRI measurement. Valence-specific patterns of amygdala signaling predicted decisions on food consumption significantly. Findings could be validated using the same valence localizers to predict consumption decisions participants made on a separate set of food stimuli that had not been used for localizer identification. Control analyses revealed these findings to be restricted to a multivariate compared with a univariate approach, and to be specific for valence processing in the amygdala. Spatially distributed valuation signals of the amygdala thus appear to modulate appetitive consumption decisions, and may be useful to identify current hedonic valuation processes triggering food choices even when not explicitly instructed.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The expectation of tastiness is a particularly strong driver in everyday decisions on food consumption. The amygdala is important for hedonic valuation processes and involved in valence-related behavior, but the relationship between both processes is less understood. Here, we show that hedonic values of food are represented in spatially distributed activation patterns in the amygdala. The engagement of these patterns during food choices modulates consumption decisions. Findings are stable in a separate stimulus set. These results suggest that valence-specific amygdala signals are integrated into the formation of food choices.