The eating disorders Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are serious psychiatric illnesses that affect a significant number of women and that are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. New approaches to understanding the mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of these disorders are sorely needed. Several lines of evidence suggest that abnormalities in ingestive behavior characteristic of these disorders bear similarities at a phenomenological and/or pathophysiological level to substance use disorders. Building on current understanding of mechanisms of addiction and on paradigms successfully employed to examine animal eating behavior, the proposed work will critically examine mechanisms that may underlie the development and persistence of human eating disorders. The proposed work is translational at two levels: first, from models of drug addiction to models of abnormal ingestive behavior, and, second, between models of ingestive behavior in laboratory animals and eating disorders in humans. This application grows out of a developmental grant which established collaboration among basic and clinical researchers with expertise in feeding neuroscience, addiction neuroscience, and eating disorders, with a focus on eating disorders. Based on paradigms developed under this collaboration, the current application proposes to examine factors that may contribute to the persistence of human eating disorders, focusing on the role of food reward, and on dopaminergic and opioid systems. The first specific aim of the proposed work is to identify and characterize behavioral indices of the motivating and rewarding effects of food in women with eating disorders and appropriate control subjects.
The second aim i s to investigate changes in dopamine release and receptor density, and in opioid receptor density via PET in the same populations.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed research will provide new information on mechanisms underlying the persistence of eating disorders and the resemblance of these disorders to disorders of substance abuse. Knowledge of these mechanisms will provide a scientific foundation for the development of more effective treatment interventions.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH079397-04
Application #
8032519
Study Section
Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging Study Section (APDA)
Program Officer
Chavez, Mark
Project Start
2008-05-21
Project End
2013-02-28
Budget Start
2011-03-01
Budget End
2012-02-29
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$551,102
Indirect Cost
Name
New York State Psychiatric Institute
Department
Type
DUNS #
167204994
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10032
Foerde, Karin; Gianini, Loren; Wang, Yuanjia et al. (2018) Assessment of test-retest reliability of a food choice task among healthy individuals. Appetite 123:352-356
Schebendach, Janet; Klein, Diane A; Mayer, Laurel E S et al. (2017) Assessment of the motivation to use artificial sweetener among individuals with an eating disorder. Appetite 109:131-136
Schebendach, Janet E; Call, Christine C; Attia, Evelyn et al. (2017) The effect of acute weight restoration on dietary fat preference in hospitalized patients with anorexia nervosa. Int J Eat Disord 50:148-151
Compan, Valérie; Walsh, B Timothy; Kaye, Walter et al. (2015) How Does the Brain Implement Adaptive Decision Making to Eat? J Neurosci 35:13868-78
Foerde, Karin; Steinglass, Joanna E; Shohamy, Daphna et al. (2015) Neural mechanisms supporting maladaptive food choices in anorexia nervosa. Nat Neurosci 18:1571-3
Broft, Allegra; Slifstein, Mark; Osborne, Joseph et al. (2015) Striatal dopamine type 2 receptor availability in anorexia nervosa. Psychiatry Res 233:380-7
Steinglass, Joanna; Foerde, Karin; Kostro, Katrina et al. (2015) Restrictive food intake as a choice--a paradigm for study. Int J Eat Disord 48:59-66
Schebendach, Janet E; Klein, Diane A; Mayer, Laurel E S et al. (2014) Assessment of fat taste in individuals with and without anorexia nervosa. Int J Eat Disord 47:215-8
Walsh, B Timothy (2013) The enigmatic persistence of anorexia nervosa. Am J Psychiatry 170:477-84
Heaner, Martica K; Walsh, B Timothy (2013) A history of the identification of the characteristic eating disturbances of Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder and Anorexia Nervosa. Appetite 71:445-8

Showing the most recent 10 out of 14 publications