Cortisol, but not intranasal insulin, affects the central processing of visual food cues

Stress glucocorticoids and insulin are important endocrine
regulators of energy homeostasis, but little is known about their central
interaction on the reward-related processing of food cues. According to a
balanced group design, healthy food deprived men received either 40 IU
intranasal insulin (n=13), 30 mg oral cortisol (n=12), both (n=15), or
placebo (n=14). Acoustic startle responsiveness was assessed during
presentation of food and non-food pictures. Cortisol enhanced startle
responsiveness during visual presentation of "high glycemic" food, but
not during presentation of neutral and pleasant non-food pictures.
Insulin had no effect. Based on the "frustrative non-reward" model these
results suggest that the reward value of high glycemic food items is
specifically increased by cortisol.