title: Behind binge eating: A review of food-specific adaptations of neurocognitive and neuroimaging tasks.
abstract: Recurrent binge eating, or overeating accompanied by a sense of loss of control, is a major public health concern. Identifying similarities and differences among individuals with binge eating and those with other psychiatric symptoms and characterizing the deficits that uniquely predispose individuals to eating problems are essential to improving treatment. Research suggests that altered reward and control-related processes may contribute to dysregulated eating and other impulsive behaviors in binge-eating populations, but the best methods for reliably assessing the contributions of these processes to binge eating are unclear. In this review, we summarize standard neurocognitive and neuroimaging tasks that assess reward and control-related processes, describe adaptations of these tasks used to study eating and food-specific responsivity and deficits, and consider the advantages and limitations of these tasks. Future studies integrating both general and food-specific tasks with neuroimaging will improve understanding of the neurocognitive processes and neural circuits that contribute to binge eating and could inform novel interventions that more directly target or prevent this transdiagnostic behavior.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States. Electronic address: lberner@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Laura A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Berner
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
authors.forename: Samantha R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States; San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Brittany E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Matheson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
authors.forename: Leora
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States; The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Lowe
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000818:Animals; D056912:Binge-Eating Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000523:psychology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D059906:Neuroimaging
keywords: Binge eating; Binge eating disorder; Bulimia nervosa; Inhibition; Neuroimaging; Reward