Still, while our findings overall are most consistent with the standard interpretation for this task, the paradoxical finding in our study suggests that future studies can and should test the possibility of an alternate interpretation for a delay discounting task when foods are used as the target choice. A key limitation for the present study is that a hyperbolic discounting curve could not be analyzed because only one indifference point was computed for each food type. In the present study, the immediate reward was not varied at different delays, as is most typical. Instead the delay was held constant and the magnitude of the immediate reward was varied. This procedure allowed for a single dependent variable, or indifference point, to be compared across groups and to minimize the number of times participants completed the same task. Future studies are needed to specifically compare the results reported here to studies in which multiple indifference points are plotted along a hyperbolic discounting curve. Some additional limitations can be identified here. First, whether reduced self-control causes increased risk of depression and obesity, or vise versa cannot be determined, although the pattern of results shows that these factors are related. In addition, the delay discounting task included only four foods—one food for each category. One food was used in each category to reduce the time it would take to complete the delay discounting task and minimize the number of times participants were asked to complete the same task. Two key limitations follow. First, differences cannot be compared between the food types. The foods vary in many characteristics,PJ34 hydrochloride therefore it is important that future work look at which specific characteristics of the food themselves may lead to effects of delay discounting. Also, it is not possible to generalize beyond the food types used in this study, although such a possibility can and should also be tested. Because the fried food was a meat food, other studies could look at vegetarian fried foods to determine the generalizability across diet types. Other participant characteristics not tested in this study include ethnicity and participant motivation to manage body weight. Whether these additional factors may interact with analyses reported here cannot be evaluated, but can and should be tested in future studies. Although the power for this study was satisfactory, it would be advantageous to conduct these types of studies with population-based samples to strengthen generalization across the full spectrum of BMI and depression diagnosis criteria. Likewise it would be important to examine delay discounting in other psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which have also been linked to obesity as well as to examine the effects of psychotropic drugs such as antidepressants and Granisetron hydrochlorideantipsychotics. Given the plausible role of hot cognition circuits, it would also be of interest to test whether focal neuromodulation of specific circuits might help ameliorate maladaptive delay discounting. Taken together, these findings are consistent with a growing body of research showing that the marked rise in the comorbidities and prevalence of obesity and depression are related or bidirectional.