MEG brain activities reflecting affection for visual food stimuli

This study aimed to explore the modulation of alpha rhythm in response to food pictures with distinct affection values. We examined the method to discriminate subject´s state, i.e., whether he/she liked the article of food or not, from MEG signals detected over the head. Pictures of familiar foods were used as affective stimuli, while those pictures with complementary color phase were used as non-affective stimuli. Alpha band signals in a narrow frequency window around the spectral peak of individual subjects were wavelet analyzed and phase-locked component to the stimulus onset was obtained as a complex number. The amplitude of the phase-locked component was averaged during 0-1 s after stimulus onset for 30 epochs in a measurement session and across 76 channels of MEG sensor. In statistical test of individual subjects, significant difference was found in the real part of the averaged phase-locked amplitude between the normal-color and reverse-color pictures. These results suggest that affective information processing of food pictures is reflected in the synchronized component of narrow band alpha rhythm.