Frank Guido K W
Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Children's Hospital Colorado, Gary Pavilion A036/B-130, 13123 East 16th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045, Tel.: 720-777-1909.
Expert Opin Med Diagn. 2012 May 1;6(3):235-244. doi: 10.1517/17530059.2012.673583.
Anorexia and bulimia nervosa are severe psychiatric disorders and the availability of brain imaging techniques hold promise that those techniques will be useful in clinical practice. AREAS COVERED: In this review I describe currently available brain imaging techniques and focus on the brain imaging methods functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). Those techniques have helped describe alterations in brain circuitry in AN and BN that related to anxiety and reward processing. Novel computational models help further define brain function in relation to particular neurotransmitters. EXPERT OPINION: Brain imaging techniques are exciting methods to learn about brain function and progress has been made to identify in healthy populations brain circuits that code behaviors. These techniques have been used in AN and BN over the past decade and have improved our understanding of brain function in those disorders. Still, human brain imaging is not at a point yet where it could be used diagnostically. However, with the refinement of imaging hardware as well as improved models that describe brain function we will get closer to our aims to not only better understand the neurobiology of those disorders, but predict illness development, treatment response and long term prognosis.
神经性厌食症和神经性贪食症是严重的精神疾病，脑成像技术的出现让人们期待这些技术在临床实践中发挥作用。
在本综述中，我描述了当前可用的脑成像技术，并重点介绍了脑成像方法——功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和正电子发射断层扫描（PET）。这些技术有助于描述神经性厌食症和神经性贪食症患者大脑回路中与焦虑和奖赏处理相关的改变。新型计算模型有助于进一步明确与特定神经递质相关的脑功能。
脑成像技术是了解脑功能的令人兴奋的方法，在识别健康人群中编码行为的脑回路方面已经取得了进展。在过去十年中，这些技术已被应用于神经性厌食症和神经性贪食症的研究，增进了我们对这些疾病中脑功能的理解。然而，人脑成像目前还不能用于诊断。不过，随着成像硬件的改进以及描述脑功能的模型的完善，我们将更接近我们的目标，不仅能更好地理解这些疾病的神经生物学机制，还能预测疾病发展、治疗反应和长期预后。
