Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.

Growing evidence suggests that resource scarcity can severely impede individuals' cognitive capacity, resulting in sub-optimal decision making. Few experimental studies investigate whether food deprivation as a form of resource scarcity influences decisions in other non-hunger related domains....

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Main Authors: Austin Landini, Michelle Segovia, Marco Palma, Rodolfo M Nayga
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312811&type=printable
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author Austin Landini
Michelle Segovia
Marco Palma
Rodolfo M Nayga
author_facet Austin Landini
Michelle Segovia
Marco Palma
Rodolfo M Nayga
author_sort Austin Landini
collection DOAJ
description Growing evidence suggests that resource scarcity can severely impede individuals' cognitive capacity, resulting in sub-optimal decision making. Few experimental studies investigate whether food deprivation as a form of resource scarcity influences decisions in other non-hunger related domains. We examine the effect of short term fasting on cognitive capacity by exogenously manipulating individuals' fasting time in a laboratory experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: 1) 3-hour fast; 2) 12-hour fast; and 3) control, in which participants were not required to fast and consumed a protein shake upon arriving to the lab. Following the manipulation, participants completed the Raven's Progressive Matrices test which measures cognitive function. Although we find null treatment effects on cognitive ability, our results provide evidence that short term fasting does not directly inhibit cognition.
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publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
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series PLoS ONE
spelling doaj-art-e359aba0f8e2459096a9db0b51ffd7e12025-08-20T02:50:05ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-011911e031281110.1371/journal.pone.0312811Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.Austin LandiniMichelle SegoviaMarco PalmaRodolfo M NaygaGrowing evidence suggests that resource scarcity can severely impede individuals' cognitive capacity, resulting in sub-optimal decision making. Few experimental studies investigate whether food deprivation as a form of resource scarcity influences decisions in other non-hunger related domains. We examine the effect of short term fasting on cognitive capacity by exogenously manipulating individuals' fasting time in a laboratory experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: 1) 3-hour fast; 2) 12-hour fast; and 3) control, in which participants were not required to fast and consumed a protein shake upon arriving to the lab. Following the manipulation, participants completed the Raven's Progressive Matrices test which measures cognitive function. Although we find null treatment effects on cognitive ability, our results provide evidence that short term fasting does not directly inhibit cognition.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312811&type=printable
spellingShingle Austin Landini
Michelle Segovia
Marco Palma
Rodolfo M Nayga
Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
PLoS ONE
title Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
title_full Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
title_fullStr Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
title_full_unstemmed Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
title_short Food for thought: The impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability.
title_sort food for thought the impact of short term fasting on cognitive ability
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312811&type=printable
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