Reward-related neural responses to the taste of regular and non-alcoholic beer

In various countries in the industrialized world, beer brewers are launching
non-alcoholic beers on the market place. Non-alcoholic beer may be a thirst
quenching non-sweet beverage, with almost similar properties as regular alcohol
containing beer. One of the questions around non-alcoholic beer is whether or
not people associate its sensory properties with reward as they do with regular
beer.
So far, no research has been done to investigate whether the reward value of
commercially available non-alcoholic beer equals that of alcohol-containing
counterpart in a setting where alcohol is expected.

The objective of this study is to assess whether oral exposure to beer and
non-alcoholic beer elicits similar reward responses in the brain in a setting
where only beer is expected. This knowledge will give fundamental insight in
whether alcohol is detected by the brain independent of taste sensations or
whether the flavour of beer is a conditioned cue associated with alcohol.

The study has a randomized crossover design (within subject design) in which
participants taste a fixed amount of beer and non-alcoholic beer during an fMRI
scan session. The order in which participants are exposed to beer and
non-alcoholic beer is randomized and counterbalanced.

This study will consist of a sensory test and a training session (screening:
approx. 60 min (including filling out questionnaires and measurement of body
height and weight)) and the actual experiment (approx. 60 min) on separate
days. Participants will visit the laboratory in Wageningen for the sensory test
and training session. For the fMRI experiment, participants will visit the MRI
facility in Hospital Gelderse Vallei (Ede) once. During the MRI session
subjects will taste beer and non-alcoholic beer.
The study is non-therapeutic to the participants. The risk associated with
participation is negligible.