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P Durlach

Publications and source records attributed to P Durlach.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Mood, eating behaviour and attention.

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a growing health problem, but most people find dieting unsuccessful. Three studies examine possible reasons for the difficulty and the extent to which dieting-related reductions in cognitive function are associated with mood and well-being. METHOD: In Study One, 49 female dieters were compared with a control group of 31 matched non-dieters on measures of well-being, mood, eating behaviour (Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire), and attention. Study Two examined two measures of restraint to examine why previous studies find high restrainers are prone to react to emotion. Study Three experimentally manipulated mood using music and the standard Velten Induction Procedure to examine attention in restrainers and emotional eaters. RESULTS: Dieting was found to be associated with deficits in sustained attention. This finding was further supported by the demonstration of a significant impairment in performance following a negative mood induction in high emotional eaters whereas high restrainers were relatively unaffected by the mood challenge. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that different aspects of eating behaviour have dissociable effects on cognitive-affective function. Trait tendencies to restrained eating are associated with attentional deficits, but are not further affected by mood disruption. It is the long-term tendency to eat when emotional that combines with current emotional state to trigger cognitive deficits.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Glucose facilitation of cognitive performance in healthy young adults: examination of the influence of fast-duration, time of day and pre-consumption plasma glucose levels.

RATIONALE: Previous investigations have demonstrated increased performance after the administration of a glucose-load on certain aspects of cognitive functioning in healthy young adults. Generally these studies have used a procedure where participants were tested in the morning after an overnight fast. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was, for the first time, to investigate the glucose cognitive facilitation effect under more natural testing times and with shorter duration of the previous fast. METHODS: Measures of verbal and non-verbal memory performance were compared under different fasting intervals (2-h fast versus overnight fast), times (morning versus afternoon) and glycaemic conditions (glucose versus aspartame drinks) in healthy young participants. RESULTS: There was a significant glucose facilitation effect on long-term verbal memory performance. In addition, glucose significantly enhanced long-term spatial memory performance. The effect of glucose was essentially equivalent whether it was given after an overnight fast or a 2-h fast following breakfast or lunch. There was no effect of drink and time of day on working memory performance. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study further support the hypothesis that glucose administration can enhance certain aspects of memory performance in healthy young adults. More significantly, the findings indicate that this cognitive facilitation effect persists under more naturalistic conditions of glucose administration and is not restricted to long fast durations or morning administration.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Acquisition and extinction of flavour preferences conditioned by caffeine in humans.

Previous research has shown that moderate caffeine users develop a liking for the flavour of a novel caffeinated drink only if they experience this drink in a caffeine-deprived state. This study tested how sensitive these conditioned-flavour preferences are to subsequent changes in deprivation state and the continued presence or absence of caffeine. Thirty-six moderate caffeine consumers were given 4 training days during which they evaluated a novel flavoured caffeinated drink consumed mid-morning after 12 h caffeine deprivation. Subjects were then divided into four groups depending on whether or not they remained caffeine-deprived and whether the test drink continued to contain caffeine. They then re-evaluated the novel drink over a further 4 test days. As expected, liking for the test drink increased across the 4 training days, and this increased liking was maintained across the 4 test days in the group who continued to receive the caffeinated version of the drink in a caffeine-deprived state. Liking decreased in the test phase in the caffeine-deprived group who no longer received caffeine (extinction). It is surprising that both groups who were tested in a non-deprived state showed a marked decrease in liking on all 4 test days relative to the last training day. This implies that conditioned-flavour preferences may not be expressed in the absence of the relevant motivational state (caffeine deprivation). Together, these data suggest that flavour preferences conditioned by caffeine are very sensitive to changes in the contingent relationship between deprivation state and caffeine content of the drink.

Adult↗