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

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

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

Page 1: 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

Page 2: Functional Neuroanatomy of Body Shape Perception in Healthy and Eating-Disordered Women Uher 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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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Implications

• Insight into how eating disorders may be developed

-development of drugs to treat eating disorders

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Future Directions

• Males• More thorough

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

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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

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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

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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.

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Thank You,

Questions?