Neural mechanisms supporting maladaptive food choices in anorexia nervosa.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Foerde K
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4624561 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Neural mechanisms supporting maladaptive food choices in anorexia nervosa.
Foerde Karin K Steinglass Joanna E JE Shohamy Daphna D Walsh B Timothy BT
Nature neuroscience 20151012 11
People routinely make poor choices, despite knowledge of negative consequences. The authors found that individuals with anorexia nervosa, who make maladaptive food choices to the point of starvation, engaged the dorsal striatum more than healthy controls when making choices about what to eat, and that activity in fronto-striatal circuits was correlated with their actual food consumption in a meal the next day. ...[more]
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Project description:BackgroundPrevious fMRI studies show that women with eating disorders (ED) have differential neural activation to viewing food images. However, despite clinical differences in their responses to food, differential neural activation to thinking about eating food, between women with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) is not known.MethodsWe compare 50 women (8 with BN, 18 with AN and 24 age-matched healthy controls [HC]) while they view food images during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).ResultsIn response to food (vs non-food) images, women with BN showed greater neural activation in the visual cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right insular cortex and precentral gyrus, women with AN showed greater activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cerebellum and right precuneus. HC women activated the cerebellum, right insular cortex, right medial temporal lobe and left caudate. Direct comparisons revealed that compared to HC, the BN group showed relative deactivation in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus/insula, and visual cortex, and compared to AN had relative deactivation in the parietal lobe and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, but greater activation in the caudate, superior temporal gyrus, right insula and supplementary motor area.ConclusionsWomen with AN and BN activate top-down cognitive control in response to food images, yet women with BN have increased activation in reward and somatosensory regions, which might impinge on cognitive control over food consumption and binge eating.
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