Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.
Int J Eat Disord. 2021 Aug;54(8):1527-1536. doi: 10.1002/eat.23563. Epub 2021 Jun 1.
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.
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 self-report 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.
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.
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.
大脑结构的改变与多种形式的精神病理学的发病和急性期有关。然而，目前关于暴食的大脑结构的研究很少，这导致了对与暴食相关的机制的理解不足。
患有暴食症的青少年女孩和成年女性（年龄在 14-35 岁之间，n=56）和年龄匹配的、没有暴食行为的女孩和成年女性（n=26）完成了结构磁共振成像（MRI）扫描，并进行了基于访谈的和自我报告的饮食障碍和一般精神病理学评估。使用 FreeSurfer 处理 MRI 数据。协方差分析测试了暴食组和非暴食组之间预先选择的感兴趣区域的皮质下体积和皮质厚度的平均值差异，控制了年龄、体重指数、催吐频率、抑郁和药物使用。探索性部分相关分析测试了暴食参与者的大脑结构与饮食障碍症状之间的关联。
我们没有观察到有暴食和无暴食的女孩和成年女性之间区域皮质下体积和皮质厚度的差异。在有暴食行为的参与者中，态度性饮食障碍症状的严重程度与尾状中额回、右侧中央前回、右侧中央后回、上顶叶、左顶下叶厚度和左伏隔核体积呈负相关；然而，这些关联在进行多次比较校正后就不再显著。
态度性饮食障碍症状与额顶叶变薄之间的相关性可能代表了暴食的一种状态标志物。未来的研究可以调查额顶叶变薄是否随着疾病持续时间的延长而恶化，或者是否在停止暴食后仍然存在。
