TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - The suggestible brain: posthypnotic effects on value-based decision-making
JO  - Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
A1  - Ludwig, Vera U.
A1  - Stelzel, Christine
A1  - Krutiak, Harald
A1  - Magrabi, Amadeus
A1  - Steimke, Rosa
A1  - Paschke, Lena M.
A1  - Kathmann, Norbert
A1  - Walter, Henrik
SP  - 1281
EP  - 1288
VL  - 9
IS  - 9
N2  - Hypnosis can affect perception, motor function, and memory. However, so far no study using neuroimaging has investigated whether hypnosis can influence reward processing and decision-making. Here we assessed whether posthypnotic suggestions can diminish the attractiveness of unhealthy food and whether this is more effective than diminishing attractiveness by one's own effort via autosuggestion. Sixteen participants were hypnotized and 16 others were instructed to associate a color cue (blue or green) with disgust regarding specific snacks (sweet or salty). Afterwards, participants bid for snack items shown on an either blue or green background during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurement. Both hypnosis and autosuggestion successfully devalued snacks. This was indicated by participants' decision-making, their self-report, and by decreased blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a region known to represent value. Different vmPFC subregions coded for cue and snack type. The cue had significantly stronger effects on vmPFC after hypnosis than after autosuggestion, indicating that hypnosis was more effective in genuinely reducing value. Supporting previous findings, the precuneus was involved in the hypnotic effects by encoding whether a snack was sweet or salty during hypnotic cue presentation. Our results demonstrate that posthypnotic suggestions can influence valuation and decision-making.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1749-5016
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst110
ID  - ref1
ER  -