No evidence of calorie-related modulation of N2 in food-related Go/No-Go training: A preregistered ERP study.

Go/No-Go tasks, which require participants to inhibit automatic responses to images of palatable foods, have shown diagnostic value in quantifying food-related impulses. Moreover, they have shown potential for training to control impulsive eating. To test the hypothesis that training modulates early neural markers of response inhibition, the current study investigated how the N2 event-related brain potential to high- and low-calorie food images changes along Go-/No-Go training and how the N2 is related to later eating behavior. 50 healthy adults, (m(BMI) = 23.01) first completed a food Go/No-Go task in which high- and low-calorie food images were accompanied by Go-and No-Go-cues with equal frequency. Participants then completed a training block in which high-calorie foods were predominantly paired with a No-Go cue and the low-calorie foods with a Go cue, followed by a block with reversed coupling (order of the training blocks counterbalanced between participants). After each training, there was a snacking opportunity during which calorie intake was measured. Against our preregistered hypotheses, the N2-amplitudes were not significantly affected by the calorie-content and there was no training-related modulation in the N2. In addition , food intake was not influenced by the preceding training blocks and the N2 amplitude did not predict the food intake. Our study suggests that the link between N2 obtained in a food-related Go/No-Go task and impulse control is not clear-cut and may be limited to specific task characteristics. The results are of high importance as they question the previously assumed mechanism of Go/No-Go training in food-related inhibitory control.