title: Grey matter abnormalities within cortico-limbic-striatal circuits in acute and weight-restored anorexia nervosa patients.
abstract: Functional disturbances within cortico-striatal control systems have been implicated in the psychobiology (i.e. impaired cognitive-behavioral flexibility, perfectionist personality) of anorexia nervosa. The aim of the present study was to investigate the morphometry of brain regions within cortico-striatal networks in acute anorexia nervosa (AN) as well as long-term weight-restored anorexia nervosa (AN-WR) patients. A total of 39 participants: 12 AN, 13 AN-WR patients, and 14 healthy controls (HC) underwent high-resolution, T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a cognitive-behavioral flexibility task, and a psychometric assessment. Group differences in local grey matter volume (GMV) were analyzed using whole brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and brain-atlas based automatic volumetry computation (IBASPM). Individual differences in total GMV were considered as a covariate in all analyses. In the regional brain morphometry, AN patients, as compared to HC, showed decreased GMVs (VBM and volumetry) in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the supplementary motor area (SMA), and in subcortical regions (amygdala, putamen: VBM only). AN-WR compared to HC showed decreased GMV (VBM and volumetry) in the ACC and SMA, whereas GMV of the subcortical region showed no differences. The findings of the study suggest that structural abnormalities of the ACC and SMA were independent of the disease stage, whereas subcortical limbic-striatal changes were state dependent.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Internal Medicine and Psychosomatics, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. hans-christoph_friederich@med.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Friederich
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Walther
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bendszus
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Biller
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Thomann
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zeigermann
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Katus
authors.forename: Romuald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brunner
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zastrow
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Herzog
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008032:Limbic System / Q000473:pathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000473:pathology; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology*; D015430:Weight Gain