Elanor Hinton

University of Bristol | UB · NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre Diet & Physical Activity Theme

was awarded the Student Competition prize. Time-limited eating is a dietary intervention whereby calorie intake is limited to a specific window of time during the day ⁽¹⁾ . The usual eating windows (EW) of adults, and how this can be manipulated for dietary interventions, is well documented ⁽²⁾ . However, there is a paucity of data on the usual EW...

A key component of mindful eating is paying attention to the sensory properties of one’s food as one eats (‘sensory eating’). Some studies have found that sensory eating reduces subsequent food intake whilst others have failed to replicate these effects. We report four laboratory studies that (a) examine effects of sensory eating on subsequent inta...

Time-limited eating is a dietary intervention whereby eating is limited to a specific window of time during the day. The usual eating windows of adults, and how these can be manipulated for dietary interventions, is well documented. However, there is a paucity of data on eating windows of young people, the manipulation of which may be a useful inte...

Objectives Eating while distracted has been associated with a higher body mass index (BMI), whereas mindful eating and episodic memory for recent eating have shown the opposite pattern. This pre‐registered, global study ( https://osf.io/rdjzk ) compared the relative association between these variables (and four “positive controls”: restraint, disin...

Background This paper details the development of the Adolescent Intrinsic Motivation ‘AIM2Change’ intervention to support weight-management in young people previously unable to make changes whilst attending a tier 3 weight management service for children and young people. AIM2Change is an acceptance and commitment therapy based intervention that wi...

Previously, narrative reviews have considered the effects of intermittent fasting on appetite. One suggestion is that intermittent fasting attenuates an increase in appetite that typically accompanies weight loss. Here, we conducted the first systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify the effects of intermittent fasting on appetite, when compa...

Introduction: Craniopharyngiomas are rare brain tumours (incidence 1.1-1.7 cases/million/year). Although non-malignant, craniopharyngioma causes major endocrine and visual morbidities including hypothalamic obesity, yet mechanisms leading to obesity are poorly understood. This study investigated the feasibility and acceptability of eating behaviou...

Acute exercise suppresses appetite and alters food-cue reactivity, but the extent exercise-induced changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) influences the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal during appetite-related paradigms is not known. This study examined the impact of acute running on visual food-cue reactivity and explored whether such resp...

This systematic review examined whether neural responses to visual food-cues measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are influenced by physical activity. Seven databases were searched up to February 2023 for human studies evaluating visual food-cue reactivity using fMRI alongside an assessment of habitual physical activity or struc...

Introduction There is a growing understanding of the benefits of patient and public involvement (PPI), and its evaluation, in research. An online version of the CUBE PPI evaluation framework has been developed. We sought to use the CUBE to evaluate the value of early PPI with two small healthcare companies during product development. Methods Contr...

Anxiety and snacking increased during the initial coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns, but it remains unknown whether this change in snacking persisted and if it related to anxiety levels. We used prospective data to examine changes in snacking frequency from t1 (eased restrictions in England in May-June 2020) to t2 (national lockdown in...

Introduction: Craniopharyngiomas are rare brain tumours (incidence 1.1-1.7 cases/million/year). Although benign, craniopharyngioma causes major endocrine and visual morbidities including hypothalamic obesity, yet mechanisms leading to obesity are poorly understood. This study investigated the feasibility and acceptability of eating behaviour measur...

Background There is growing understanding of the benefits of patient and public involvement (PPI), and its subsequent evaluation, in research. An online version of the CUBE PPI evaluation framework has been developed. This study sought to use the CUBE to evaluate the value of early PPI with two small healthcare companies during product development....

Acute exercise has been shown to alter food cue reactivity using blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) immediately after exercise may influence the BOLD signal during appetite-related paradigms. This analysis explored the time-course of CBF changes after exercise to id...

Aims Craniopharyngioma (CP) is a rare and benign suprasellar tumour with significant long-term sequel like obesity. There is poor understanding around the pathophysiology underpinning this weight gain, which may be linked to hypothalamic damage. One of the aims of this pilot, feasibility study was to investigate the downstream effect of CP on brain...

This paper details the development of the Adolescent Intrinsic Motivation AIM2Change intervention to support weight-management in young people previously unable to make changes whilst attending a tier 3 weight management service for children and young people. AIM2Change is an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) based intervention that will be d...

BACKGROUND A multi-disciplinary approach to weight management is offered at tier three services. Encouraging dietary change is a major aim. OBJECTIVE This research sought to trial an inhibitory control training smartphone-app, FoodT, with the clinic population of one, weight management METHODS FoodT was offered to patients during a routine clinic...

Background A multidisciplinary approach to weight management is offered at tier 3 pediatric weight management services in the United Kingdom. Encouraging dietary change is a major aim, with patients meeting with dieticians, endocrinologists, psychologists, nurse specialists, and social workers on average every other month. Objective This research...

Eating at a faster speed is positively correlated with having a higher BMI. Modifying eating speed may offer a treatment opportunity for those with overweight and obesity. This review sought to understand the feasibility, acceptability, and benefit to using eating speed interventions in paediatric clinical weight-management settings. The PICO Frame...

Objective: The objective of the review is to explore the evidence that investigates behavioral and psychological mechanisms underlying the development of obesity in patients with craniopharyngioma, in order to map that evidence, identify gaps in the literature, and find avenues of future intervention. Introduction: Craniopharyngiomas are low-gra...

Objective: This preliminary review was conducted to inform the design of a new service to support families with children with Prader-Willi Syndrome. Families were invited to attend a pilot clinic at a hospital outpatient department, comprising of appointments with a multi-disciplinary team. Method: Following the clinic, families (n=6) were invit...

The reduction of portion sizes supports weight-loss. This study looks at whether children have a conceptual understanding of portion size, by studying their ability to manually serve a portion size that corresponds to what they eat. In a clinical setting, discussion around portion size is subjective thus a computerised portion size tool is also tri...

Objective This study seeks to understand family’s perceptions of their care at a paediatric weight management service, with a view to informing service improvement. Design A qualitative service review conducted via semistructured interviews with parents (n=11) and children (n=3) who attended the clinic. The recruitment was open to all, but those w...

Modifying eating behaviours may be an effective strategy to limit excess food intake, such as eating slower and mindfully. We hypothesized that regularly rating fullness whilst eating a standard meal in one course would increase post-meal satiety and reduce intake in a subsequent course during the same sitting. A between-subjects design was employe...

Background: Eating speed is positively correlated with higher BMI. Thus, modifying pace of eating may provide a treatment opportunity for those with overweight and obesity, which may have additional, longitudinal benefits if established in childhood. Researchers have designed interventions to help both adults and children reduce eating speed as a m...

Slowing eating rate appears to be an effective strategy for reducing food intake. This feasibility study investigated the effect of eating rate on post-meal responses using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), plasma gastrointestinal hormone concentrations, appetite ratings, memory for recent eating, and snack consumption. Twenty-one parti...

Background Slowing eating rate using the Mandolean® previously helped obese adolescents to self-select smaller portion sizes, with no reduction in satiety, and enhanced ghrelin suppression. The objective of this pilot, randomised trial was to investigate the neural response to food cues following Mandolean® training using functional Magnetic Resona...

The capacity to learn new information and manipulate it for efficient retrieval has long been studied through reasoning paradigms, which also has applicability to the study of social behavior. Humans can learn about the linear order within groups using reasoning, and the success of such reasoning may vary according to affective state, such as depre...

The neural generators of visual mismatch: A shared frontal generator across modalities Craig Hedge1, George Stothart1, Jenna Todd Jones1, Priscila Rojas Frias1, Kristopher Magee1, Ute Leonards1, Nina Kazanina1, Elanor Hinton1,2, Jamila Andoh1,2, Jade Thai1,2, Jonathan Brooks1,2;1University of Bristol, 2Bristol Clinical Research and Imaging Centre...

Laboratory-based studies of human dietary behaviour benefit from highly controlled conditions; however, this approach can lack ecological validity. Identifying a reliable method to capture and quantify natural dietary behaviours represents an important challenge for researchers. In this study, we scrutinised cafeteria-style meals in the 'Restaurant...

Psychological and neurobiological evidence implicates hippocampal-dependent memory processes in the control of hunger and food intake. In humans, these have been revealed in the hyperphagia that is associated with amnesia. However, it remains unclear whether 'memory for recent eating' plays a significant role in neurologically intact humans. In thi...

Previously, expected satiety (ES) has been measured using software and two-dimensional pictures presented on a computer screen. In this context, ES is an excellent predictor of self-selected portions, when quantified using similar images and similar software. In the present study we sought to establish the veracity of ES as a predictor of behaviour...

Previously, we have shown that foods differ markedly in the satiety that they are expected to confer (compared calorie-for-calorie). In the present study we tested the hypothesis that 'expected satiety' plays a causal role in the satiety that is experienced after a food has been consumed. Before lunch, participants (N=32) were shown the ingredients...

The customary approach to the study of meal size suggests that 'events' occurring during a meal lead to its termination. Recent research, however, suggests that a number of decisions are made before eating commences that may affect meal size. The present study sought to address three key research questions around meal size: the extent to which plat...

A behavior-analytic model of transitive inference (TI) as relational reasoning with derived comparative relations is outlined. Following nonarbitrary relational training and testing to establish contextual functions of "more than" (>) and "less than" (<) for two abstract stimuli, two groups of participants learned a series of contextually controlle...

A novel, five-term relational reasoning paradigm was employed during functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural correlates of the symbolic distance effect (SDE). Prior to scanning, participants learned a series of more-than (E>D>C>B>A) or less-than (A<B<C<D<E) ordered premise pairs. During scanning, inferential tests presented the...

This study focused on genetic and behavioural aspects of one important component of the motivation to eat - how appetitive arousal is elicited through the presentation of food-associated stimuli. Individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder associated with hyperphagia, and control participants completed a computerised response task in...

Environmental stimuli constantly compete for human attention and in many cases decisions are made based on the affective meaning they convey. Although the network of structures involved in processing affective value has been well described, the specific contribution of these structures to the process by which affective value guides decision making...

Research into the excessive eating behaviour associated with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) to date has focused on homeostatic and behavioural investigations. The aim of this study was to examine the role of the reward system in such eating behaviour, in terms of both the pattern of food preferences and the neural substrates of incentive in the amygda...

International Journal of Obesity is a monthly, multi-disciplinary forum for papers describing basic, clinical and applied studies in biochemistry, genetics and nutrition, together with molecular, metabolic, psychological and epidemiological aspects of obesity and related disorders

To investigate the neural basis of the abnormal eating behaviour in Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), using brain imaging. We predicted that the satiety response in those with PWS would be delayed and insensitive to food intake. The design of this study was based on a previous investigation of the neural activation associated with conditions of fasting...

There is now substantial evidence from animal studies showing modulation of cognitive performance after administration of dopaminergic agents. Previous studies have focused on cognitive functions such as working memory (WM), with particular reference to spatial processing. However, to date, studies in normal human volunteers have proved inconsisten...

The motivation to eat in humans is a complex process influenced by intrinsic mechanisms relating to the hunger and satiety cascade, and extrinsic mechanisms based on the appetitive incentive value of individual foods, which can themselves induce desire. This study was designed to investigate the neural basis of these two factors contributing to the...

Theories of incentive motivation attempt to capture the way in which objects and events in the world can acquire high motivational value and drive behavior, even in the absence of a clear biological need. In addition, for an individual to select the most appropriate goal, the incentive values of competing desirable objects need to be defined and co...