Brain Activity in Self- and Value-Related Regions in Response to Online Antismoking Messages Predicts Behavior Change

Abstract

In this study, we combined approaches from media psychology and neuroscience to ask whether brain activity in response to online antismoking messages can predict smoking behavior change. In particular, we examined activity in subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex linked to self- and value-related processing, to test whether these neurocognitive processes play a role in message-consistent behavior change. We observed significant relationships between activity in both brain regions of interest and behavior change (such that higher activity predicted a larger reduction in smoking). Furthermore, activity in these brain regions predicted variance independent of traditional, theory-driven self-report metrics such as intention, self-efficacy, and risk perceptions. We propose that valuation is an additional cognitive process that should be investigated further as we search for a mechanistic explanation of the relationship between brain activity and media effects relevant to health behavior change.

Keywords: behavior change; brain-as-predictor; cognitive neuroscience; neuroimaging; smoking.

Figures

Figure 1

Task and analysis design. (A) Participants viewed 23 banner ads, which averaged 18 s each in duration. After watching each video, they were asked to rate how much the ad made them want to quit smoking, on a 5-point scale. This was followed by an intertrial fixation period. We extracted activity during the time period participants were watching the banner ads, from our regions of interest in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). (B) Histogram of the percentage change in daily smoking across the final sample (negative value = reduction in smoking). Activity in each region of interest was used to predict the percentage change in daily smoking.

Figure 2

Regions of interest. (A) Self- and value-related regions of interest overlap with predictive region from prior work. The MPFC_ss region (medial prefrontal cortex [MPFC] region identified by prior sunscreen use study) is in crosshatch; the MPFC_self region (identified by the self-localizer) is in black; and the MPFC_sv region (valuation region identified by meta-analysis) is in white. (B) Self- and value-related regions overlap with each other.

Figure 3

Neural activity during online antismoking ads predicts smoking behavior change. Proportional behavior change is plotted against percentage signal change in activity from the: (A) MPFC sunscreen region of interest (ROI; Falk et al., 2010), r2 = 0.18; (B) MPFC self-localizer ROI, r2 = 0.16; and (C) MPFC subjective value ROI (Bartra et al., 2013), r2 = 0.13.