Schag Kathrin, Sandler Lea, Zipfel Stephan, Derntl Birgit, Giel Katrin Elisabeth
Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Medical University Hospital Tübingen, Osianderstraße 5, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
Centre of Excellence for Eating Disorders Tübingen (KOMET), Tübingen, Germany.
J Eat Disord. 2023 Jul 31;11(1):125. doi: 10.1186/s40337-023-00848-2.
Emotion regulation theories and the negative urgency concept assume that negative mood increases binge eating. Negative emotions are considered as a trigger for binge eating, while binge eating itself is regarded as an impulsive behavior and should thus be increased within the negative urgency concept. Anger might be a specific negative emotion triggering binge eating in patients with binge eating disorder (BED). We investigated how inhibitory control as one main factor of impulsivity is influenced by anger stimuli in patients with BED and two control groups.
We compared patients with BED (N = 20) with normal-weight healthy control participants (NW-CG, N = 20) and BMI-matched overweight and obese control participants (BMI-CG, N = 18). We used the emotional Stop Signal task (eSST) to investigate inhibitory control, where we presented angry facial expressions in comparison with neutral facial expressions as emotional stimuli.
All participants showed decreased inhibitory control in the angry versus neutral condition, i.e., a faster Stop Signal Reaction Time and a lower percentage of correct reactions. However, no significant group differences emerged in terms of performance. Performance in the eSST did not correlate with negative urgency, disorder- or emotion-related characteristics.
The current pilot study does not deliver evidence for decreased inhibitory control towards angry stimuli in patients with BED, as we detected a general and not disorder-related effect in all participants that might represent the conjunction of inhibitory control and anger. A direct mood induction technique might have led to different results. Further research in healthy and clinical groups is needed.
情绪调节理论和负性紧迫感概念认为，负面情绪会增加暴饮暴食。负面情绪被视为暴饮暴食的触发因素，而暴饮暴食本身被视为一种冲动行为，因此在负性紧迫感概念中应该会增加。愤怒可能是暴食症（BED）患者暴饮暴食的一种特定负面情绪。我们研究了作为冲动性主要因素之一的抑制控制如何受到BED患者和两个对照组愤怒刺激的影响。
我们将BED患者（N = 20）与正常体重健康对照参与者（NW-CG，N = 20）以及BMI匹配的超重和肥胖对照参与者（BMI-CG，N = 18）进行比较。我们使用情绪停止信号任务（eSST）来研究抑制控制，其中我们呈现愤怒面部表情与中性面部表情作为情绪刺激进行对比。
所有参与者在愤怒与中性条件下均表现出抑制控制下降，即更快的停止信号反应时间和更低的正确反应百分比。然而，在表现方面未出现显著的组间差异。eSST中的表现与负性紧迫感、与障碍或情绪相关的特征无关。
当前的初步研究没有提供证据表明BED患者对愤怒刺激的抑制控制下降，因为我们在所有参与者中检测到的是一种普遍的而非与障碍相关的效应，这可能代表了抑制控制和愤怒的结合。直接的情绪诱导技术可能会导致不同的结果。需要在健康组和临床组中进行进一步研究。
