Section of Eating Disorders, Division of Psychological Medicine and Psychiatry, King's College London, UK.
Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2011 Nov-Dec;19(6):462-74. doi: 10.1002/erv.1069. Epub 2011 Jan 30.
Similarities have been noted between cognitive profiles of anorexia nervosa (AN) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, there are no direct comparison studies. This study aimed to compare the cognitive profile of AN against published ASD data on tasks measuring empathy, executive function and central coherence.
Currently ill AN outpatients (n = 40) were statistically compared against published ASD scores on Reading the Mind in the Eyes, Voice and Films tasks (assessing empathy), Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) (assessing executive function) and Embedded Figures Task (EFT) (assessing detail focus aspect of central coherence).
Cognitive profiles of the groups were statistically similar, except for differences in the relative patterns of empathy scores.
The cognitive profile in current AN resembles that of ASD with important clinical implications. Replication studies with planned comparisons, examination of the state-or trait-nature of AN profile and clarification of factors underpinning similarities are required in order to broaden understanding of both disorders.
厌食症（AN）和自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者的认知特征存在相似之处。然而，目前还没有直接的对比研究。本研究旨在比较 AN 的认知特征与已发表的 ASD 数据，这些数据是关于同理心、执行功能和中心连贯任务的测量。
本研究将当前患有 AN 的门诊患者（n=40）与已发表的 ASD 评分进行统计学比较，这些 ASD 评分来自于眼动阅读、声音和电影任务（评估同理心）、威斯康星卡片分类任务（WCST）（评估执行功能）和嵌入式图形任务（EFT）（评估中心连贯的细节关注方面）。
两组的认知特征在统计学上相似，但同理心评分的相对模式存在差异。
目前 AN 的认知特征与 ASD 相似，具有重要的临床意义。为了更深入地了解这两种疾病，需要进行有计划比较的复制研究，检查 AN 特征的状态或特征性质，并阐明相似性的基础因素。
