title: Reward abnormalities among women with full and subthreshold bulimia nervosa: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To test the hypothesis that women with full and subthreshold bulimia nervosa show abnormal neural activation in response to food intake and anticipated food intake relative to healthy control women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Females with and without full/subthreshold bulimia nervosa recruited from the community (N = 26) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during receipt and anticipated receipt of chocolate milkshake and a tasteless control solution.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Women with bulimia nervosa showed trends for less activation than healthy controls in the right anterior insula in response to anticipated receipt of chocolate milkshake (vs. tasteless solution) and in the left middle frontal gyrus, right posterior insula, right precentral gyrus, and right mid dorsal insula in response to consumptions of milkshake (vs. tasteless solution).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bulimia nervosa may be related to potential hypofunctioning of the brain reward system, which may lead these individuals to binge eat to compensate for this reward deficit, though the hypo-responsivity might be a result of a history of binge eating highly palatable foods.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA. cbohon@mednet.ucla.edu
authors: Cara
authors: C
authors: Bohon
authors: Eric
authors: E
authors: Stice
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D052018:Bulimia Nervosa / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D059906:Neuroimaging; D012201:Reward