It’s been proposed and only minimally explored that personality factors may play a role in determining an individual’s sensitivity to and preference for capsaicin containing foods. of moderation was observed; however differential effects of the personality traits were seen in men versus women. In men GS-9973 Sensitivity to Reward associated more strongly with liking and consumption of spicy foods while in women Sensation Seeking associated more strongly with liking and intake of spicy foods. These differences suggest that in men and women there may be divergent mechanisms leading to the intake of spicy foods; specifically men may respond more to extrinsic factors while women may respond more to intrinsic factors. Plus version 5.2 (Guelph Ontario Canada). 2.4 Sampled Stimuli A 10 mL aliquot of 25 uM capsaicin was presented to participants as part of a series of six food grade stimuli; other food-grade stimuli included potassium chloride quinine HCl Acesulfame potassium a MSG/IMP blend and sucrose (Allen McGeary et al. 2013 Presentation order was counterbalanced in a Williams Design to minimize carryover Rabbit Polyclonal to ATG16L2. effects. This capsaicin concentration and volume were selected as they evoke burning sensations above ‘strong’ on a general GS-9973 Labeled Magnitude level (gLMS) in sip and spit experiments (e.g. Hayes Allen et al. 2013 Capsaicin was first dissolved in ethanol and then diluted to volume as explained previously (Byrnes & Hayes 2013 All stimuli (10 mL) were presented in plastic medicine cups at room heat. GS-9973 Participants rinsed twice with room heat reverse osmosis (RO) water prior to the first stimulus and then ad libitum between each subsequent stimulus; a minimum interstimulus interval of 30 seconds was enforced and the experimenter did not provide the next sample until the participant reported all sensations from the previous stimulus were gone. After swirling a sample in his or her mouth for three seconds and expectorating but prior to rinsing participants were asked to rate six sensation qualities (observe Allen McGeary et al. 2013 for each stimulus; only burning/stinging ratings for capsaicin are used here. 2.5 Measuring Food Preference During the first visit to the laboratory participants completed a generalized Degree of Liking (gDOL) questionnaire; critically this approach differs from most food preference questionnaires in that it includes non-food items to help generalize affective responses outside of a context solely focused on food. Other recent examples of generalized hedonic questionnaires have been described somewhere else (Duffy Hayes et al. GS-9973 2009 Peracchio Henebery et al. 2012 Pickering Jain et al. 2012 Scarmo Henebery et al. 2012 The edition from the gDOL utilized this is a 63-item study with 27 foods 20 alcohol consumption and 16 nonfood items. Hedonic rankings were collected on the bipolar horizontal visible analog range using the ends from the range being tagged ‘most powerful disliking of any kind’ (still left aspect) and ‘most powerful liking of any kind’ (correct side); the midpoint from the scale ?畁atural’ was labeled. Right GS-9973 here our analyses centered on affective rankings for three from the 27 foods in the gDOL: ‘burn off of the spicy food’ ‘spicy Asian meals’ and ‘preference of spicy and/or BBQ ribs’. 2.6 Web-based questionnaire Following the first lab session individuals completed a web-based character study that included items in the Private Body Awareness (Miller Murphy et al. 1981 Arnett’s Inventory of Feeling Searching for (AISS; Arnett 1994) as well as the Awareness to Abuse and Awareness to Praise Questionnaire (SPSRQ; Torrubia Avila et al. 2001 For more information on these procedures find Byrnes and Hayes (2013). For the rest of this record we make use of lower case words when discussing the general idea of feeling seeking and utilize the expression Sensation Searching for (capitalized) or the initialism AISS when discussing ratings on Arnett’s Inventory of Feeling Searching for (Arnett 1994 To assess regular intake we modified the question utilized previously by Lawless and co-workers (1985). We asked individuals “How often perform you consume all sorts of chili peppers in foods including Mexican Indian Chinese language Thai Korean and other food stuffs which contain chili pepper and trigger tingling or burning up?” Responses had been recorded with an 8-stage category: range (hardly ever <1/month 1 1 3 5 1 2 was utilized. These values had been re-coded being a annual regularity (e.g. 1-3/month=24 3 1 etc.) and log transformed to evaluation to lessen skew prior. 2.7 Statistical Analysis All data had been analyzed using SAS 9.2 (Cary NC). All assumptions of multiple.