title: Neural differences in self-perception during illness and after weight-recovery in anorexia nervosa.
abstract: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe mental illness characterized by problems with self-perception. Whole-brain neural activations in healthy women, women with AN and women in long-term weight recovery following AN were compared using two functional magnetic resonance imaging tasks probing different aspects of self-perception. The Social Identity-V2 task involved consideration about oneself and others using socially descriptive adjectives. Both the ill and weight-recovered women with AN engaged medial prefrontal cortex less than healthy women for self-relevant cognitions, a potential biological trait difference. Weight-recovered women also activated the inferior frontal gyri and dorsal anterior cingulate more for direct self-evaluations than for reflected self-evaluations, unlike both other groups, suggesting that recovery may include compensatory neural changes related to social perspectives. The Faces task compared viewing oneself to a stranger. Participants with AN showed elevated activity in the bilateral fusiform gyri for self-images, unlike the weight-recovered and healthy women, suggesting cognitive distortions about physical appearance are a state rather than trait problem in this disease. Because both ill and recovered women showed neural differences related to social self-perception, but only recovered women differed when considering social perspectives, these neurocognitive targets may be particularly important for treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX 75390, USA carrie.mcadams@utsouthwestern.edu.|Psychiatry, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, Dallas, TX 75321, USA.
authors.forename: Carrie J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: McAdams
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.
authors.forename: Haekyung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jeon-Slaughter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.
authors.forename: Siobahn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, VA 24016, USA.
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lohrenz
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, VA 24016, USA.|Computational Psychiatry Unit, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, VA 24016, USA.|Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, 12 Queen Square, London, WCIN 3BG, UK.|Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
authors.forename: P Read
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Montague
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.|Center for Brain Health, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX 75390, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Krawczyk
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008875:Middle Aged; D010469:Perceptual Distortion / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D012016:Reference Values; D012649:Self Concept; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords:  eating disorders; fMRI; medial prefrontal cortex; psychiatry; self-reflection