Authors
Flament, B., Rodrigues, B., Khalid, I., Rotge, J. Y., Poitou-Bernert, C., Plassmann, H., Schmidt, L.
Abstract
Resolving the inner conflict between improving eating habits (change talk) and maintaining unhealthy ones (sustain talk) is a key target in communication-based behavioral change interventions, such as motivational interviewing (MI). Recent work has shown that this inner conflict affects how tastiness and healthiness are traded off in dietary decision-making. The effect varied with body mass index (BMI). Here we aimed to identify why participants with higher BMI shifted toward healthier food choices after listening to change talk. An evidence accumulation model found that BMI affected health evidence sampling when listening to change talk, and taste evidence sampling when listening to sustain talk. A serial mediation analysis showed that the effect of BMI on change-talk-induced health evidence sampling was explained by stronger resting-state connectivity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex within the default mode network (DMN), which in turn predicted greater motivation to change eating habits. These cross-sectional findings indicate that the intrinsic functional organization of valuation-related regions within the DMN is associated with motivation to change. They provide evidence that these neural and behavioral factors need to align with contextual cues, such as metabolic health (e.g., BMI indicating weight status), and with reasons for behavioral change to promote healthier decision-making.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 20 Aug 2026.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 10
- Comments 0