Neural response to angry and disgusted facial expressions in bulimia nervosa

Abstract

The neural response to emotional facial expressions in BN differs from that found in HVs. The precuneus response may be consistent with the application of mentalization theory to EDs, and the amygdala response with relevant ED theory. The findings are preliminary, but novel, and require replication in a larger sample.

Neural activation during anticipated peer evaluation and laboratory meal intake in overweight girls with and without loss of control eating

“…Although youth with anxiety disorders have demonstrated AMY hyperactivation in social evaluation paradigms, 28,29,50,51 some data indicate that individuals with binge-type eating disorders exhibit AMY hypoactivation AMY when presented with socially threatening stimuli relative to healthy controls. 106–108 Such hypo-responsivity has been interpreted as emotional blunting, which is consistent with frequent reports of alexithymia among adolescent girls with LOC eating. 109 Therefore, a lack of elevated AMY activity during the chatroom paradigm may be the result of emotional blunting among girls with LOC eating.…”

Altered intrinsic functional brain architecture in female patients with bulimia nervosa

“…8 Dysfunction in these regions has been proposed to comprise key neural mechanisms underlying altered reward and emotional sensitivity, 2,[4][5][6][7] interoceptive deficits 3 and self-regulatory difficulties, 12,13 especially in response to eating-and body-related stimuli. These multidimensional pathological features collectively induce the body image distortion and binge eating and purging behaviours characteristic of bulimia nervosa.…”

“…We hypothesized that patients with bulimia nervosa would show abnormal topological properties in functional brain networks and that the functional disturbances would be apparent in the cortical and subcortical regions involved in reward and emotional processing, sensorimotor and visual perception, and interoception, based on potential relevance of these neural functions to bulimia nervosa. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] We also examined the behavioural/symptom correlates of these network properties.…”

“…We mainly examined the reproducibility of the results of small-world parameters and nodal strength measures. 4 We also tested our results using nonparametric permutation Functional brain networks in bulimia nervosa tests. Briefly, we calculated the between-group difference in the mean value of each network metric.…”

“…4 Altered activity in the ACC and OFC has been observed in patients with bulimia nervosa during impulse-control tasks, which has been associated with self-regulatory deficits 12,13 (i.e., an inability to inhibit impulses in favour of a delayed reward). Although it plays an important role in the processing of interoception-reward signals, 53 disturbed insula response to sucrose taste has been implicated in interoceptive deficits (i.e., reduced ability to feel full or hungry) in individuals with bulimia nervosa.…”