Cerebral Atrophy and Vigilance Performance in Patients with Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa

Abstract

The relationship between ventricular size, as a measure of brain atrophy, and performance on a vigilance task was investigated in 39 patients with anorexia or bulimia nervosa during the acute stage of their illness. Compared to normal controls, the patients performed significantly more poorly in the cognitive task. Half of the patients displayed enlarged ventricles. However, the patients with ventricular dilatation did not perform worse in the cognitive test than patients with normally sized ventricles. Other clinical characteristics, such as symptom severity or duration of illness, were also not correlated with ventricular size. These results support the interpretation that cerebral atrophy per se does not have severe consequences on the neuropsychological or psychopathological status in eating disorder patients.

Selective working memory deficits in anorexia nervosa

“…Moreover, our findings are broadly consistent with previous research that has shown impaired visuo-spatial ability in the absence of verbal memory problems in women with AN (Hamsher et al, 1981;Szmukler et al, 1992). They also support the notion that visuo-spatial tasks rely more heavily than verbal tasks on general attentional resources (Baddeley, Cocchini, Della Sala, Logie, & Spinnler, 1999), which have been shown to be diminished in AN (Kingston et al, 1996;Laessle, Krieg, Fitcher, & Pirke, 1989;Pendleton-Jones et al, 1991).…”

Neurobiology of anorexia and bulimia nervosa

“…Similarly, MRI studies in AN showed larger CSF volumes in association with deficits in both total grey matter (GM) and total white matter (WM) volumes (108) as well as enlarged ventricles (109)(110)(111). Fewer neuroimaging studies have been conducted in BN, and those have found decreased cortical mass (112)(113)(114). Whether these abnormalities persist to a lesser degree after weight restoration is less certain, since some studies show persistent alterations (108) but other studies show normalization of grey and white matter after recovery in AN and BN {Wagner, 2006 #2829 As noted above, in order to avoid the confounding effects of malnutrition, extremes of food ingestion and/or weight loss, the review of other imaging studies will focus mostly on studies of individuals after recovery from an ED.…”

Neuropsychological Impairments in Anorexia Nervosa: A Spanish Sample Pilot Study

“…Although early investigations have hypothesized that cognitive impairments in AN could be secondary to right parietal damage (Kinsbourne & Bemporad, 1984), this theory was later replaced with one focusing on cognitive abilities located in the frontal cerebral areas such as the orbitofrontal cortex, ventromedial cortex, anterior cingulated cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Cavedini et al, 2004;Laessle, Krieg, Fichter, & Pirke, 1989;Pendleton-Jones, Duncan, Brouwers, & Mirsky, 1991;Szmukler, Andrewes, Kingston, Chen, & Stargatt, 1992). Thus, after Halmi et al (2003) suggested a common pathway might be involved both in AN and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), investigations attempted to focus on the frontal impairment profiles by studying cognitive capabilities located in the frontal and prefrontal cerebral areas.…”