This dataset allows to explore how spatial resolution influences activations elicited when appetizing food pictures are viewed. Twenty subjects were imaged at 3 T with two different voxel volumes, 3.4 μl (highres) and 27 μl (lowres).

For each voxel volume, the stimulation paradigm consisted of alternating 18 blocks presenting, in a randomized order, either ready-to-eat edible objects, or pictures of items that were clearly unrelated to food. 54 different pictures were selected for each of the food-related and nonfood-related blocks. The food images depicted savory and sweet meals commonly served at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Images were presented to each of the subjects in randomized order.

After the fMRI session, all the participants were asked to rate each picture showing food for motivational salience on a 7-point scale (0: extremely repulsive; 1: very repulsive; 2: quite repul- sive; 3: neutral; 4: quite appetizing; 5: very appetizing; 6: extremely appetizing). The mean ± SD of these post-scanning ratings was 4.5 ± 1.2, significantly higher than 4 (paired Student’s t-test: t (54) = 12.2, p < 0.001), thus indicating that our subjects rated the pictures showing food as significantly appetizing.

The acquisition methodology is more deeply described in the following articles: Iranpour J, Morrot G, Claise B, Jean B, Bonny J-M (2015) Using High Spatial Resolution to Improve BOLD fMRI Detection at 3T. PLoS ONE 10(11): e0141358. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141358