Extreme spicy food cravers displayed increased brain activity in response to pictures of foods containing chili peppers: an fMRI study.

In China, the rate of spicy food consumption is rising, and chili pepper is among the most popular spicy foods consumed nationwide. Therefore, investigation into spicy food craving is of public health interest and can also provide better insights into the mechanisms that underlie food cravings more generally. This exploratory study aimed to determine neural circuits underlying spicy food craving by comparing brain response to the cues of foods containing chili peppers in extreme cravers and non-cravers defined by scores on the Spicy Food Craving Questionnaire. A group of extreme cravers (n = 25) and a group of age- and sex-matched non-cravers (n = 26) participated in an fMRI event-related cue-reactivity paradigm, during which pictures of foods with visible chili peppers and pictures of foods with no chili peppers were presented. Results showed that extreme spicy food cravers exhibited increased activation in bilateral insula, left putamen, left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, right inferior parietal lobule, right lingual gyrus, bilateral cuneus, left precuneus, left fusiform gyrus, and right precentral gyrus compared to non-cravers when exposed to the cues of foods containing chili versus foods without chili. While we did not observe the differential activation of orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala of this contrast in extreme cravers compared to non-cravers. Changes in beta values within the right insula, left putamen, left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and left precuneus were positively associated with subjective spicy food craving during the scan among extreme cravers. In addition, changes in beta values within right inferior parietal lobule was significantly correlated with the frequency of spicy food intake among extreme cravers. These results align with prior work suggesting that the dorsal striatum, the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula underlie food craving.