The effectiveness of an augmented tDCS and ABMT on reducing food craving in obese individuals

Obesity is a chronic, multifactorial disease. There are a number of neurocognitive and behavioral mechanisms that contribute to overeating, or eating past nutritional needs, which can lead to obesity. Obese people suffer from attention bias to food-related cues. We have different methods to modify attentional biases, such as transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) and Attention Modification Programs (AMP). In this research we want to assess the effect of each of these methods and combination of them on food craving in obese people. 48 overweight and obese volunteers from Atieh clinic were assigned to 2 control (Sham tDCS and Sham ABMT) and 3 experimental (tDCS, ABMT and combination of these methods) groups. All participants’ age, height, weight and physical and psychological disorders were recorded. Then they completed Food Craving Questionnaire (FCQ) before and after the treatment. They received 10 treatment session based on the plane of the group they were in. The results of Covariance Analysis showed that tDCS and the combination of tDCS and ABMT significantly reduced the scores of FCQ in obese individual significantly. We didn’t see any significant change in FCQ post test results in group who received ABMT. We can use tDCS and ABMT with each other to reduce food craving in obese people