Melissa J Hayden

• BAppSci, PhD
• Lecturer at Deakin University

Background/Aims: Inhibitory control training (ICT) is a cognitive intervention that has been suggested to reduce problematic appetitive behaviours, such as unhealthy eating and excessive alcohol consumption. We conducted a meta-analytic review of ICT for reducing appetitive behaviours. Methods: Two meta-analyses were conducted for behavioural (o...

Self‐reported dietary intake is commonly used to inform policy; however, memory‐based reports are subject to error. Our aim was to examine dietary reporting errors using a repeated‐events framework. Participants ( N = 102) completed a 3‐day food diary and 10 days later recalled what they had consumed on one self‐nominated day and one experimenter‐n...

Objective: Inhibitory control training (ICT) has shown promise for improving health behaviours, however, less is known about its mediators of effectiveness. The current paper reports whether ICT reduces smoking-related outcomes such as craving and nicotine dependence, increases motivation to quit and whether reductions in smoking or craving are med...

Behavioral studies have shown that the ability to discriminate between non-native speech sounds improves after seeing how the sounds are articulated. This study examined the influence of visual articulatory information on the neural correlates of non-native speech sound discrimination. English speakers’ discrimination of the Hindi dental and retrof...

Objective: The high rates of illness and mortality associated with cigarette smoking necessitate the development of novel reduction and cessation treatments. Inhibitory control training (ICT) has recently emerged as a potentially efficacious intervention to reduce the consumption of alcohol and unhealthy food. This randomized controlled trial was...

Background Adolescence is a critical developmental period in the trajectory of nicotine dependence, highlighting the need for a greater understanding of the modifiable risk factors. An extensive body of research has found that trait impulsivity is associated with higher levels of adolescent smoking; however, findings have been mixed. The present st...

Background: Prevention of excessive gestational weight gain during pregnancy is difficult; targeting women before pregnancy may be more effective. Aims: In order to generate knowledge that may influence the development of effective interventions to promote healthy weight in reproductive-aged women, this study aimed to explore knowledge and belie...

Impulsive personality traits and adolescent cigarette smoking: A meta-analysis. Published manuscript can be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.01.018

Background Smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of illness and premature death worldwide. Despite a variety of effective treatments, relapse rates remain high, and novel, innovative interventions are needed in order to reduce the global prevalence of smoking. Research has indicated that deficits in the ability to inhibit a response (ref...

Objectives: Many women report declines in cognitive function during pregnancy, but attempts to empirically evaluate such changes have yielded inconsistent results. We aimed to determine whether pregnancy is associated with objective declines in cognitive functioning, and to assess the progression of any declines during pregnancy. Study design: W...

This study compared the performance of a low-cost wireless EEG system to a research-grade EEG system on an auditory oddball task designed to elicit N200 and P300 ERP components. Participants were 15 healthy adults (6 female) aged between 19 and 40 (M = 28.56; SD = 6.38). An auditory oddball task was presented comprising 1,200 presentations of a sta...

Background: Evidence indicates that substance-related cognitive biases (attentional, memory, and approach bias) contribute to the maintenance and development of substance misuse. Impulsivity has been suggested to influence how cognitive biases contribute to substance misuse, possibly by biasing incentive salience attribution processes. However, th...

The primary aim of the present study was to cross-sectionally examine the associations between maternal psychosocial variables, child feeding practices, and preschooler body mass index z-score (BMI-z) in children (aged 2–4 years). A secondary aim was to examine differences in child weight outcomes between mothers scoring above and below specified c...

Background Obesity rates have increased dramatically in recent decades, and it has proven difficult to treat. An attentional bias towards food cues may be implicated in the aetiology of obesity and influence cravings and food consumption. This review systematically investigated whether attentional biases to food cues exist in overweight/obese compa...

Health behaviour theories acknowledge that beliefs, attitudes and knowledge contribute to health behaviours, yet the role of these cognitions in predicting weight gain during pregnancy has not been widely researched. To explore and compare the predictive nature of gestational weight gain (GWG) expectations and knowledge on weight gain during pregna...

The preschool years may be a critical period for child obesity onset, however literature examining obesity risk factors to date has largely focused on school-aged children. Several links have been made between maternal depression and childhood obesity risks, however other types of maternal psychopathology have been widely neglected. The aim of the...

The global obesity epidemic continues to grow with rising obesity rates increasing every year. With a relative lack of successful interventions, research has attempted to discern cognitive components that may be implicated in excessive food consumption and weight gain. Self-regulation has been suggested as one factor which may influence the intenti...

Bariatric surgery candidates have higher rates of co-morbid psychological illnesses than those in the general population. The effect of weight loss on these illnesses is unclear. This prospective observational study explored psychiatric co-morbidities and weight loss outcomes in 204 gastric banding surgery candidates. Psychiatric co-morbidities wer...

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is one of the most commonly used instruments to assess depression in persons with obesity. While it has been validated in normal and psychiatric populations, in obese populations, its validity remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the BDI-IA and BDI-II in severely obes...

Central auditory processing in schizophrenia patients with a history of auditory hallucinations has been reported to be impaired, and abnormalities of interhemispheric transfer have been implicated in these patients. This study examined interhemispheric functional connectivity between auditory cortical regions, using temporal information obtained f...

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) has been frequently employed as a measure of depression in studies of obesity, with the majority of studies reporting an improvement in scores following weight loss. Given the potential similarity in obesity-related and depressive symptoms, it is uncertain whether all components of depression would improve equall...

Patients' perceptions about weight-related stigma and discrimination were assessed in 2 groups of patients, obese and laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB). Seven focus group sessions were held including a total of 32 women, 8 obese (body mass index 35+) and 24 who had lost 50% of excess weight following bariatric surgery. During the sessi...

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is frequently employed as measure of depression in studies of obesity. The aim of the study was to assess the factorial structure of the BDI in obese patients prior to bariatric surgery. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the current published factor analyses of the BDI. Three published models were ini...

High levels of readiness to change (RTC) are considered critical to the long-term success of weight management programs including bariatric surgery. However, there are no data to support this assertion. We hypothesize that RTC level will not influence weight outcomes following surgery. In 227 consecutive patients undergoing adjustable gastric bandi...

The objective of this study was to review physician attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and barriers towards adult patients who are overweight and obese. Electronic searches were carried out on PubMed, Medline and Embase up to July 2007. The search terms were built around 'obesity', 'physicians', and 'attitudes'. Only peer-reviewed full papers in English...

Depression and obesity, the two common ailments of modern society, are associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease and raised C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Are the effects of depression and obesity related or do they influence CRP levels independently? In 493 consecutive patients presenting for obesity surgery, we explored the rela...