Subcortical brain volume and cortical thickness in adolescent girls and women with binge eating

Abstract

Objective: Alterations in brain structure have been implicated in the onset and acute phases of several forms of psychopathology. However, there is a dearth of research investigating brain structure in persons with binge eating, contributing to poor understanding of mechanisms associated with binge eating.Method: Adolescent girls and women (aged 14-35 years) with binge eating (n = 56) and group age-matched girls and women without binge eating (n = 26) completed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and interview-based and selfreport assessments of eating disorder and general psychopathology. MRI data were processed using FreeSurfer. Analysis of covariance tested mean differences in subcortical volume and cortical thickness of a priori selected regions of interest between binge-eating and non-binge-eating groups, controlling for age, body mass index, purging frequency, depression, and medication use. Exploratory partial correlations tested associations between brain structure and eating disorder symptoms within participants with binge eating. Results:We did not observe differences in regional subcortical volume and cortical thickness between girls and women with and without binge eating. Within participants with binge eating, severity of attitudinal eating disorder symptoms was inversely associated with caudal middle frontal gyrus, right precentral gyrus, right postcentral gyrus, superior parietal, left inferior parietal thickness, and left accumbens volume; however, these associations would not survive multiple-comparison corrections.Discussion: Correlations between attitudinal eating disorder symptoms and frontoparietal thinning may represent a state marker of binge eating. Future research could investigate whether frontoparietal thinning worsens with illness duration or persists beyond binge eating cessation.

Investigation of Altered Spontaneous Brain Activity Patterns In Herpes Zoster Keratitis Using The Percent Amplitude of Fluctuation Method: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

“…One recent study showed that the cortex in the right precentral gyrus in some progressive neurodegenerative disorders was becoming thinner such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 16 . The emotional eating disorder has also been related to the right precentral gyrus, symptoms being negatively correlated with the volume of the gyrus 17 . This region also featured in eye research, patients with iridocyclitis reportedly having a signi cantly lower the amplitude of low-frequency uctuation value in this region than healthy controls 18 .…”

Altered connectivity patterns of medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex underlie the severity of bulimic symptoms

“…Individuals with other neurological disorders, use of psychoactive medications, and other chronic diseases were excluded. Given the comorbidity between bulimia and overweight/obesity (e.g., Da Luz et al., 2018 ; Jebeile et al., 2021 ), and given that the sample was drawn from a general population, those with a BMI above/below normal weight were not excluded (e.g., Abdo et al., 2020 ; Hagan & Bohon, 2021 ) in order to maximize the number of participants and the ecological validity of the results. Instead, we included BMI as covariates to ensure that our results were not confounded by participants’ BMI.…”

Aberrant functional connectivity between reward and inhibitory control networks in pre-adolescent binge eating disorder

“…To date, relatively few neuroimaging studies have assessed the neural circuits involved in the psychopathology of BED (Steward, Menchon, Jiménez-Murcia, Soriano-Mas, & Fernandez-Aranda, 2018), and those that exist have predominantly assessed adults. Existing studies of those engaging in binge eating episodes have revealed no consistent alterations in gray matter morphometry (Abdo, Boyd, Baboumian, Pantazatos, & Geliebter, 2020; Hagan & Bohon, 2021), although arterial spin labeling studies suggest that women with binge type eating disorder presentations (BED, BN) demonstrate increased regional cerebral blood flow in both reward and inhibitory control regions (Martins et al, 2020). Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have illustrated elevated OFC and VS activity during food cue presentation tasks (Lee, Namkoong, & Jung, 2017; Weygandt, Schaefer, Schienle, & Haynes, 2012), which predicts clinical BED symptom severity (Wang et al, 2011).…”

“…Existing studies of those engaging in binge eating episodes have revealed no consistent alterations in gray matter morphometry (Abdo, Boyd, Baboumian, Pantazatos, & Geliebter, 2020;Hagan & Bohon, 2021), although arterial spin labeling studies suggest that women with binge type eating disorder presentations (BED, BN) demonstrate increased regional cerebral blood flow in both reward and inhibitory control regions (Martins et al, 2020). Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have illustrated elevated OFC and VS activity during food cue presentation tasks (Lee, Namkoong, & Jung, 2017;Weygandt, Schaefer, Schienle, & Haynes, 2012), which predicts clinical BED symptom severity (Wang et al, 2011).…”