Background
Abnormalities in perception and evaluation of body shape are a hallmark of eating
disorders.
Methods
Brain responses to line drawings of underweight, normal weight, and overweight female
bodies were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging in 9 women with bulimia
nervosa, 13 with anorexia nervosa, and 18 healthy women. Participants rated the stimuli
for fear and disgust.
Results
In the three groups, the lateral fusiform gyrus, inferior parietal cortex, and lateral
prefrontal cortex were activated in response to body shapes compared with the control
condition (drawings of houses). The responses in the lateral fusiform gyrus and in
the parietal cortex were less strong in patients with eating disorders compared with
healthy control subjects. Patients with eating disorders rated the body shapes in
all weight categories as more aversive than did healthy women. In the group with eating
disorders, the aversion ratings correlated positively with activity in the right medial
apical prefrontal cortex.
Conclusions
Processing of female body shapes engages a distributed neural network, parts of which
are underactive in women with eating disorders. The considerable variability in subjective
emotional reaction to body shapes in patients with eating disorders is associated
with differential activity in the prefrontal cortex.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 08, 2005
Accepted:
May 13,
2005
Received in revised form:
May 11,
2005
Received:
March 11,
2005
Identification
Copyright
© 2005 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
