Functional Neuroanatomy of Body Shape Perception in Healthy and Eating-Disordered Women Uher et al. Vivian Kwan.

Functional Neuroanatomy of Body Shape Perception in Healthy and Eating-Disordered

WomenUher et al.

Vivian Kwan

Introduction

•Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN) patients view their bodies unrealistically

•Dysfunction in body image processing

Related Brain Areas:

•Extrastriate body area (EBA) –lateral occipitotemporal cortex

•Right parietal cortex

Research Question:

How will the brain responses to body shapes differ in healthy vs. eating disordered women?

Hypothesis: Pictures of body shapes will elicit different brain responses in healthy vs. AN and BN patients

Methods

• participants: 8 Bulimia Nervosa 13 Anorexia Nervosa 18 Healthy All women

• procedure: FMRI scanner - mirror on head coil reflected the pictures off of a projection screen

• stimulus: pictures shown for 2.5 seconds followed by blank screen for 0.5 seconds

Results

Compared to healthy women, women with eating disorders had significantly lower activation of:

- occipitotemporal cortex (includes EBA) - parietal cortex

When looking at body shape pictures

Discussion• Analysis of results:

- underactivity of this network may explain distorted and unrealistic perceptions of their own body

• Limitations:

- Y causes X- line drawings instead of real life images- fluctuations in body image in patients- medical comorbidity(eg. Depression, OCD)

Implications

• Insight into how eating disorders may be developed

-development of drugs to treat eating disorders

Future Directions

• Males• More thorough

participant screening (for comorbidity & stage of illness/state of body image)

What you Should Study for Midterm

• key finding: body shape processing different in healthy vs eating-disordered women - BN/AN patients had lower activation in occipitotermporal cortex and the parietal cortex

• Interpretation: this underactivity may explain distorted of patient’s own perception of their bodies

• Implications: insight into what causes eating disorders

• Main limitation: patient sample- medical comorbidity and changing body image

Opinion on the Paper The Good

• Captivating intro• Concise• Clear graphs• Interesting study• has pictures of brains (!)

The Bad•Too much detail •Discussion not very organized

All in All…

•Good: Made a complex study understandable

Uher, R., Murphy, T., Friederich, H., Dalgleish, T., Brammer, M., Giampietro, V., Phillips, M., Andrew, C., Ng, V., Williams, S., Campbell, I., and Treasure, J. (2005). Functional neuroanatomy of body shape perception in healthy and eating-disordered women, Biological Psychiatry, 58 (12), 990-997.

Thank You,

Questions?