Basic HTML Version
EDRS 2012
30
T17
THE NEUROCOGNITIVE PROFILE OF ADOLESCENTS
WITH BULIMIA NERVOSA
Alison M Darcy
1
, Kathleen Kara Fitzpatric
1
, Danielle Colborn
1
,
Stephanie Manasse
1
, Daniel Le Grange
2
, James Lock
1
1
Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA,
2
The Uni-
versity of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction
: Neuropsychological characteristics are being
explored as potential endophenotypes for eating disorders
(ED). Set-shifting difficulties and weak central coherence
have been observed among adults with bulimia nervosa
(BN), however there are no published data on adolescents
with shorter illness duration. This study aimed to assess
whether adolescents with BN and BN-spectrum ED-not
otherwise specified (EDNOS-BN) exhibit the same set-shift-
ing and central coherence inefficiencies as adults, relative
to healthy controls (HC).
Methods
: A total of 82 adolescents
(n=26 BN; n=36 EDNOS-BN; n=20 HC) were administered
the Trail Making Task, Verbal Fluency and Stroop tasks of
the Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System; Wisconsin
Card Sort Task; the Brixton Spatial Anticipation Task, and the
Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Task (RCFT).
Results
: No
significant differences were found among groups on set-shift-
ing tasks, and effect sizes (Cohen’s f) were small (.09-.17).
Those with BN and EDNOS-BN scored significantly worse on
one measure of central coherence - the Accuracy Delay con-
dition of the RCFT (F[2, 72] = 4.30; p = .01) demonstrating
significantly weaker global integration in the context of visual
spatial memory with moderate-large effect size (Cohen’s f
= .35).
Conclusion
: Difficulty set-shifting is more likely the
result of illness effects over time, however inefficient visual
spatial memory may be a risk-marker for BN, regardless of
illness severity.
T18
EFFECTS OF VISUO-SPATIAL ABILITIES ON THE PER-
FORMANCE AT THE READING THE MIND IN THE EYES
TEST: A SOURCE OF POSSIBLE BIAS?
Daniela Degortes, Elena Tenconi, Paolo Santonastaso, Ange-
la Favaro
UNiversity of Padova, Padova, Italy
Anorexia nervosa (AN) patients display impairment in ability
to infer other people’s emotions especially when they are in
an underweight condition. ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ is a
task that measure this type of ability and it consists in a series
of photographs of the eye-region of different actors/actresses.
The task involves theory of mind skills; however, the task also
imply visuo-spatial abilities because some photographs are
more blurred than others. The present study aims to explore
how much visuospatial abilities may interfere with the perfor-
mance of the ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ task in a sample
of patients with lifetime AN (n=140) and in healthy women
(n=120). All subjects performed the ‘Reading the mind in the
eyes’ task and several tasks of visuo-spatial abilities (Rey-Os-
terrieth Complex Figure Task, Overlapping Figures Test,
Block Design Task). We divided the photographs according
to their quality and measured the correlation between the
ability to infer the emotions and visuo-spatial abilities for the
two groups of photographs. AN patients displayed a signifi-
cant correlation between visuospatial abilities and ability to
infer emotions only for the group of blurred photographs. No
correlation was present in healthy subjects and, in anorexia
nervosa, for sharp photographs. In conclusion, in AN impair-
ments in visuo-spatial abilities might interfere with the recog-
nition of emotions in the ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ task.
T19
Growth Trajectories in Children of Mothers with Eating
Disorders: A Longitudinal Study
Abigail Easter
1,2
, Laura, D. Howe
3
, Kate Tilling
3
, Ulrike
Schmidt
1
, Janet Treasure
1
, Nadia Micali
1,2
1
University College London, London, United Kingdom,
2
In-
stitute of Psychiatry, London, United Kingdom,
3
University of
Bristol, London, United Kingdom
Introduction:
Children of women with eating disorders (ED)
have a risk of feeding difficulties, which may have adverse
implications for their growth. However, longitudinal patterns
of growth have not previously been investigated.
Methods:
Growth trajectories were analysed using mixed-effects mod-
els, from birth to 10 years, in children of women with: lifetime
anorexia nervosa (AN; n=137), lifetime bulimia nervosa
(BN; n=165), lifetime anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa
(AN+BN; n=68) and other psychiatric disorders (n=920), and
compared to an unexposed group (n=10,190).
Results:
Male
children of women with BN and AN were found to be taller
during childhood, and female children of women with lifetime
AN (AN and AN+BN) shorter, compared to children in the
unexposed group. Between the ages of two and five, higher
BMI was observed in male children in all maternal ED groups.
Moreover, female children of women with AN tended to have
lower BMI at 2 and 5 years compared to the unexposed
group, with catch-up by age 10. Conversely, female children
of women with a history of BN had higher BMI at 2 and 5
years. C
onclusions:
Gender specific differences in growth
were apparent in the first 10 years of life in children of women
with lifetime ED. Early childhood growth has been found to
predict weight gain in adolescence and adulthood; these find-
ings have therefore public health implications in relation to the
prevention of eating and weight related disorders later in life.
T20
REWARD ANTICIPATION IN ACUTE AND RECOVERED
PATIENTS WITH ANOREXIA NERVOSA
Stefan Ehrlich
1
, Daniel Geisler
1
, Franziska Neidel
1
, Marion
Breier
1
, Luisa Flohr
1
, Johannes Zwipp
1
, Johanna Hass
1
, Eva
Seeger
1
, Veit Roessner
1
, Michael N. Smolka
2
1
Technical University Dresden, Department of Child and Ado-
lescent Psychiatry, Dresden, Germany,
2
Technical University
Dresden, Department of Psychiatry, Dresden, Germany
Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) are characterized by
deficits in adaptive behaviour, in particular reward process-
ing. However, the currently available experimental data are
concerned with the consumptive phase of reward processing.
In our present study we focus on reward anticipation and mo-
tivation in patients with AN. This ongoing study includes med-
ication-free patients with acute AN (acAN), weight-recovered
AN (recAN) and healthy female controls (HFC). Functional
MRI was performed to measure mesocorticolimbic activity
to stimuli predicting varying degrees of monetary reward,
together with behavioral assessment of subsequent motiva-
tion to obtain the respective reward. Our preliminary results
suggest altered reactivity of the mesocorticolimbic system to
stimuli predicting monetary rewards in AN patients when com-
pared to HFC. However, behaviourally acAN patients respond
more vigorously than HFC when they have the chance to
obtain low monetary rewards, while recAN show the reverse
pattern. At higher reward levels participants of all groups
respond vigorously. Abnormally high or low behavioural sensi-
tivity towards low (and not disorder-related) reward-predicting
cues can be explained in the framework of a new computa-
tional model of DA and 5-HT functioning. This model predicts
high opportunity costs in subjects in a low 5HT state and vice
versa. Aberrant sensitivity to incentive salience is mirrored by
impaired functional activity in brain reward regions.
POSTER SESSION 1 ABSTRACTS