A Neglected Topic in Neuroscience: Replicability of fMRI Results With Specific Reference to ANOREXIA NERVOSA (original) (raw)
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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 2020
Purpose The aim of the study was to define specific substrates of pathological behaviour patterns by analysing cortical activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an emotional processing task. Methods In a sample of N = 11 adolescent patients with AN (16.36 years, SD ± 1.36) and N = 11 age-matched controls, we performed a functional MRI study to detect BOLD signal changes in a 3 T MRI scanner while presenting emotional facial stimuli. Results Young people with AN presented with a generally reduced cortical activation pattern in key areas of emotion recognition for happy and fearful faces. Areas essential for control of social behaviour were associated with symptoms of depression. Conclusion Obviously, there are already indications of cortical patterns in young affected persons, which indicate a changed emotional reaction to potentially aversive stimuli in the sense of a changed top-down process of emotion avoidance. Thus, the current study provides further ev...
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Human Brain Mapping, 2021
Social–emotional processing difficulties have been reported in Anorexia Nervosa (AN), yet the neural correlates remain unclear. Previous neuroimaging work is sparse and has not used functional connectivity paradigms to more fully explore the neural correlates of emotional difficulties. Fifty‐seven acutely unwell AN (AAN) women, 60 weight‐recovered AN (WR) women and 69 healthy control (HC) women categorised the gender of a series of emotional faces while undergoing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The mean age of the AAN group was 19.40 (2.83), WR 18.37 (3.59) and HC 19.37 (3.36). A whole brain and psychophysical interaction connectivity approach was used. Parameter estimates from significant clusters were extracted and correlated with clinical symptoms. Whilst no group level differences in whole brain activation were demonstrated, significant group level functional connectivity differences emerged. WR participants showed increased connectivity between the bilateral occipital f...
Emotional imagination of negative situations: Functional neuroimaging in anorexia and bulimia
PLOS ONE, 2021
Aim The present study aims to extend the knowledge of the neural correlates of emotion processing in first episode subjects affected by anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN). We applied an emotional distress paradigm targeting negative emotions thought to be relevant for interpersonal difficulties and therapeutic resistance mechanisms. Methods The current study applied to 44 female participants with newly diagnosed AN or BN and 20 matched controls a neuroimaging paradigm eliciting affective responses. The measurements also included an extensive assessment comprising clinical scales, neuropsychological tests, measures of emotion processing and empathy. Results AN and BN did not differ from controls in terms of emotional response, emotion matching, self-reported empathy and cognitive performance. However, eating disorder and psychopathological clinical scores, as well as alexithymia levels, were increased in AN and BN. On a neural level, no significant group differences emerge...
Brain Sciences
This article summarizes the results of studies in which functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed to investigate the neurofunctional activations involved in processing visual stimuli from food in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED). A systematic review approach based on the PRISMA guidelines was used. Three databases—Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science (WoS)—were searched for brain correlates of each eating disorder. From an original pool of 688 articles, 30 articles were included and discussed. The selected studies did not always overlap in terms of research design and observed outcomes, but it was possible to identify some regularities that characterized each eating disorder. As if there were two complementary regulatory strategies, AN seems to be associated with general hyperactivity in brain regions involved in top-down control and emotional areas, such as the amygdala, insula and hypothalamus. The insula an...
2020
Aim: The present study aims to extend the knowledge of the neural correlates of emotion processing in first episode subjects affected by anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN). We applied an emotional distress paradigm targeting negative emotions thought to be relevant for interpersonal difficulties and therapeutic resistance mechanisms. Methods: The current study applied a neuroimaging paradigm eliciting affective responses to 44 female participants with newly diagnosed AN or BN and 20 matched controls. The measurements also included an extensive assessment comprised of clinical scales, neuropsychological tests, measures of emotion processing and empathy. Results: AN and BN did not differ from controls in terms of emotional response, emotion matching, self-reported empathy and cognitive performance. However, scores of eating disorder and psychopathological clinical scores, as well alexithymia levels, were increased in AN and BN. On a neural level, no significant group differences emerged, even when focusing on a region of interest selected a priori: the amygdala. Conclusions: Our data are against the hypothesis that participants with AN or BN display a reduced emotional responsiveness. This supports the hypothesis that relational difficulties, as well as therapeutic resistance, are not secondary to simple difficulty in feeling and identifying basic negative emotions in AN and BN participants. .
Increased BOLD signal in the fusiform gyrus during implicit emotion processing in anorexia nervosa
NeuroImage. Clinical, 2014
The behavioural literature in anorexia nervosa (AN) has suggested impairments in psychosocial functioning and studies using facial expression processing tasks (FEPT) have reported poorer recognition and slower identification of emotions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used alongside a FEPT, depicting neutral, mildly happy and happy faces, to examine the neural correlates of implicit emotion processing in AN. Participants were instructed to specify the gender of the faces. Levels of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms and eating disorder behaviour were obtained and principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to acquire uncorrelated variables. fMRI analysis revealed a greater blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response in AN in the right fusiform gyrus to all facial expressions. This response showed a linear increase with the happiness of the facial expression and was found to be stronger in those not taking medication. PCA analysis revealed...