Functional neuroanatomy of body shape perception in healthy and eating-disordered women.
BACKGROUND
Abnormalities in perception and evaluation of body shape are a hallmark of eating disorders.


METHODS
Brain responses to line drawings of underweight, normal weight, and overweight female bodies were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging in 9 women with bulimia nervosa, 13 with anorexia nervosa, and 18 healthy women. Participants rated the stimuli for fear and disgust.


RESULTS
In the three groups, the lateral fusiform gyrus, inferior parietal cortex, and lateral prefrontal cortex were activated in response to body shapes compared with the control condition (drawings of houses). The responses in the lateral fusiform gyrus and in the parietal cortex were less strong in patients with eating disorders compared with healthy control subjects. Patients with eating disorders rated the body shapes in all weight categories as more aversive than did healthy women. In the group with eating disorders, the aversion ratings correlated positively with activity in the right medial apical prefrontal cortex.


CONCLUSIONS
Processing of female body shapes engages a distributed neural network, parts of which are underactive in women with eating disorders. The considerable variability in subjective emotional reaction to body shapes in patients with eating disorders is associated with differential activity in the prefrontal cortex.
Uher
Rudolf
R
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London. r.uher@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Murphy
Tara
T
Friederich
Hans-Christoph
HC
Dalgleish
Tim
T
Brammer
Michael J
MJ
Giampietro
Vincent
V
Phillips
Mary L
ML
Andrew
Christopher M
CM
Ng
Virginia W
VW
Williams
Steven C R
SC
Campbell
Iain C
IC
Treasure
Janet
J
D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology; D001828:Body Image; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009765:Obesity / Q000523:psychology; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology