Is Anorexia Nervosa a Neuropsychological Disease (original) (raw)

Evidence for central nervous system, and more particularly cortical, etiology of anorexia nervosa is re viewed. Topics covered are neuropsychiatri c comor­ bidity, inheritance patterns, the neurobiology of body-image disturbance and of the eating function, perinatal and alcoholic insult to the brain, neurochemi­ cal and neuroelectric disturbance, anatomic and metabolic brain imaging, and neuropsychologi cal impairment. It is concluded that there is indeed an impor­ tant neuropsychological etiologi cal dimension to anorexia nervosa. The profile most frequently associated with anorexia nervosa is righ t posterior hy­ pometabolism, followed by righ t anterior hypermetabolism, both associated with righ t-sided abnorm al electroenceph alogram spiking. It is also proposed that bulimia consists of a "positive" neurological subtype and that restricting anorexia represents a "negative" neurological subtype. Priorities for further re­ search into anorexia nervosa are sp ecified to include twin adoption studies, brain electrical topography studies, postmortem histological studies, and experi­ mentally inspired neuropsychologi cal studies.