Belina Rodrigues

Abstract Resolving the ambivalence between immediate cravings and long-term consequences is a key target of communication-based interventions toward behavioral change, such as motivational interviewing. Here, we aimed at understanding how this ambivalence between changing and sustaining unhealthy eating habits influences food valuation and its neural mechanism.

Abstract Suggestions about hunger can generate placebo effects on hunger experiences. But, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are unknown. Here, we show in 255 women that hunger expectancies, induced by suggestion-based placebo interventions, determine hunger sensations and economic food choices.

Abstract Changing one's habits is challenging. Motivational interviewing (MI) has been proposed as a communication-based approach to overcome this challenge. Here, we tested how change and sustain talk suggestions, elicited by MI, influenced value-based dietary decision-making and responses of a recently developed neurobiological craving signature (NCS) in healthy female adults.