title: Planning Abilities in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa Compared with Healthy Controls.
abstract: Altered cognitive functioning could have an important role in the development and maintenance of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). The majority of previous research has focused on flexibility and global-detail processing. The aim of this study was to explore planning abilities in women with AN.
  
  
  
  Women with AN (n = 32) were compared to healthy controls (n = 42) using two different types of neuropsychological tasks for the assessment of planning abilities: Tower of London (ToL), a classic measure of planning abilities, and Zoo Map test, a more ecologically valid planning measure. Measures of AN psychopathology, anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsivity were also collected.
  
  
  
  The AN group did not differ from controls in the ToL (all p-values p > .05), although they performed significantly worse than controls in the main score of the Zoo Map (p = .02). A worse performance in the Zoo Map test More was associated with more eating disorders (rho = -.44, p = .018) and depressive (rho = -.42, p = .026) symptoms in the AN group.
  
  
  
  Our study suggests the presence of subtle planning difficulties in women with AN which might be better detected using tasks with increased ecological validity.
authors.affiliation: a Marqués de Valdecilla Public Foundation-Research Institute (FMV-IFIMAV) , Santander , Spain.|b Public Health Institute Carlos III, Ministry of Science and Innovation - Government of Spain , Madrid , Spain.|c Eating Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Carral-Fernández
authors.affiliation: d Mental Health Centre , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.
authors.forename: César
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: González-Blanch
authors.affiliation: e Section of Eating Disorders, Department of Psychological Medicine , King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry , London , UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Goddard
authors.affiliation: a Marqués de Valdecilla Public Foundation-Research Institute (FMV-IFIMAV) , Santander , Spain.|c Eating Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: González-Gómez
authors.affiliation: c Eating Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.
authors.forename: Pilar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Benito-González
authors.affiliation: c Eating Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.
authors.forename: Encarnación
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bustamante-Cruz
authors.affiliation: c Eating Disorders Unit, Department of Psychiatry , University Hospital "Marqués de Valdecilla" , Santander , Spain.|f CIBERSAM, Centro Investigación Biomédica en Red Salud Mental , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Andrés
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gómez Del Barrio
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anorexia; Ecological measures.; Executive functions; Neuropsychology; Planning