Frontocingular dysfunction in bulimia nervosa when confronted with disease-specific stimuli.

Objective: Bulimia nervosa (BN) is characterized by dysregulation of impulse control, in other words, uncontrolled eating. Functional neuroimaging studies have been sparse and have used variable methodologies.

Method: Thirteen medication-free female BN patients and 13 female healthy controls were investigated by functional magnetic resonance imaging using a disease-specific food paradigm.

Amygdala hyperreactivity in restrictive anorexia nervosa.

Functional imaging studies had often investigated heterogeneous samples of anorexia nervosa (AN) patients with varying paradigms and methodologies that had resulted in divergent results. The present study aimed to examine these issues by studying a well-defined sample of restrictive AN patients with a disorder-specific paradigm which had been used previously. Subjects showed increased blood oxygen level dependent responses of the cingulate, frontal, insular and parietal cortices.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the anterior cingulate cortex in eating disorders.

The anterior cingulate cortex plays a key role in eating disorders (ED), but it remains an open question whether there are deviations of the neurochemistry of this region in patients with ED. Seventeen adult female patients with ED (10 with bulimia nervosa, 7 with anorexia nervosa) were compared to 14 matched female healthy controls using single voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the anterior cingulate cortex. Group comparisons did not reveal any differences between patients and controls, but a positive correlation between glutamate and myo-inositol signals with "drive for thinness" in patients with bulimia nervosa was found in exploratory correlation analyses.

Grey matter deficit in long-term recovered anorexia nervosa patients.

Objective: Cerebral grey matter (GM) reduction has repeatedly been shown in anorexia nervosa (AN). Evidence concerning completeness of GM restitution in recovered patients is contradictory.

Methods: Five long-term recovered patients with AN were compared to symptomatic subjects and healthy controls using voxel-based morphometry.

Voxel-based morphometry in eating disorders: correlation of psychopathology with grey matter volume.

Twenty-nine adult female patients with eating disorders (17 with bulimia nervosa, 12 with restrictive anorexia nervosa) were compared with 18 age-matched female healthy controls, using voxel-based morphometry. Restrictive anorexia nervosa patients showed a decrease of grey matter, particularly affecting the anterior cingulate cortex, frontal operculum, temporoparietal regions and the precuneus. By contrast, patients with bulimia nervosa did not differ from healthy controls.

Reelin, Disabled 1, and beta 1 integrins are required for the formation of the radial glial scaffold in the hippocampus.

The extracellular matrix molecule Reelin is required for the correct positioning of neurons during the development of the forebrain. However, the mechanism of Reelin action on neuronal migration is poorly understood. Reelin is assumed to act on neurons directly, but it may also affect the differentiation of glial cells necessary for neuronal migration.