University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Hospital de la Ribera, Alzira, Valencia, Spain.
Behav Cogn Psychother. 2020 Nov;48(6):725-733. doi: 10.1017/S1352465820000260. Epub 2020 Apr 24.
Patients with eating disorders (ED) or obesity show difficulties in tasks assessing decision-making, set-shifting abilities and central coherence.
The aim of this study was to explore executive functions in eating and weight-related problems, ranging from restricting types of ED to obesity.
Two hundred and eighty-eight female participants (75 with obesity; 149 with ED: 76 with restrictive eating, 73 with bingeing-purging symptoms; and 64 healthy controls) were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Iowa Gambling Task, and the Group Embedded Figures Test to assess set-shifting, decision-making and central coherence, respectively.
Participants with either obesity or ED performed poorly on tests measuring executive functioning compared with healthy controls, even after controlling for age and intelligence. Both participants with obesity and participants with ED showed a preference for global information processing.
The findings suggest that treatments for obesity and ED would benefit from addressing difficulties in cognitive functioning, in addition to the more evident clinical symptoms related to eating, body weight and shape.
饮食障碍（ED）或肥胖患者在评估决策、转换能力和中心连贯的任务中表现出困难。
本研究旨在探讨与饮食和体重相关问题的执行功能，范围从限制型 ED 到肥胖。
288 名女性参与者（75 名肥胖；149 名 ED：76 名限制饮食，73 名暴食-清泻症状；64 名健康对照组）分别接受威斯康星卡片分类测试、爱荷华赌博任务和团体嵌入式图形测试，以评估转换能力、决策和中心连贯。
与健康对照组相比，肥胖或 ED 患者在测量执行功能的测试中表现不佳，即使在控制年龄和智力后也是如此。肥胖患者和 ED 患者都表现出对整体信息处理的偏好。
这些发现表明，肥胖和 ED 的治疗除了更明显的与饮食、体重和体型相关的临床症状外，还应针对认知功能障碍进行治疗。
