Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 59, Issue 3, 1 February 2006, Pages 291-293
Biological Psychiatry

Brief report
Normal Brain Tissue Volumes after Long-Term Recovery in Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.06.014Get rights and content

Background

Individuals who are ill with anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) often have increased cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volumes and decreased total gray and white matter volumes. It is unclear whether such disturbances persist after recovery from an eating disorder.

Methods

Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 40 women who were long-term recovered (>1 year no binging, purging, or restricting behaviors, normal weight, and menstrual cycles, not on medication) from restricting or binge/purging type AN or BN and 31 healthy control women (CW). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used for data analysis.

Results

Recovered AN and BN subgroups were similar to CW in terms of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume as well as total or regional gray or white matter volume.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that structural brain abnormalities are reversible in individuals with eating disorders after long-term recovery.

Section snippets

Sample Collection

Forty recovered ED subjects were recruited, 14 meeting criteria for restricting type AN (RAN), 16 for binge-purging type AN (BAN) and 10 for BN. To be considered “recovered,” for the previous year subjects had to (1) maintain a weight above 85% of average body weight; (2) have regular menstrual cycles; (3) have not binged, purged, restricted food intake or exercised excessively; and (4) not used psychoactive medications. Thirty-one CW were recruited. They had no history of an ED or any

Results

Recovered subjects and CW were of similar age and body mass index (BMI) (Table 1). The average length of recovery ranged from 29.8 to 39.5 months. Groups had similar volumes for total (Table 2) GM, WM, and CSF as well as regional values (data not shown). There was a small but not significant decline of total GMV with age, while total WMV and total CSF volume showed a small but not significant increase in all recovered subjects (age/GMV: r = −.193, p = .232; age/ WMV: r = .167, p = .304; age vs.

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      However, while adequate weight restoration and recovery seem to be crucial for global brain volumes normalization to occur, the findings on regional GMV are rather inconsistent. While some studies support the hypothesis of a full recovery of both global and local GMV after eating and weight normalization (Bang et al., 2016; Nickel et al., 2018; Wagner et al., 2006), other studies claim that regional changes still remain detectable in recovered patients (Friederich et al., 2012; Roberto et al., 2011). Consistently with this latter evidence, our VBM whole brain analysis revealed between-group differences in the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG): in more detail, decreased regional GMV within this region characterized the rec-AN group compared to HC.

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