Structural alterations of thalamic nuclei and their associations with leptin levels in patients with anorexia nervosa.

Background: The thalamus is a complex subcortical brain structure that plays a role in various cognitive functions. Few studies have focused on thalamic nuclei-specific alterations and potential neurohormonal involvement in eating disorders including anorexia nervosa (AN).

Methods: We employed a FreeSurfer segmentation tool to compare thalamic nuclei volumes cross-sectionally between females with AN (n = 131, 12-29 years) and age-matched healthy females (HC, n = 131).

Increased self-reported delay of gratification in acutely underweight, but not remitted anorexia nervosa.

Objective: Laboratory experiments using delay discounting tasks have delivered some evidence of an increased capacity to delay reward in anorexia nervosa (AN). Overall, however, findings have been inconclusive and no comprehensive studies of self-reported tendency to forgo immediate gratification in favor of long-term rewards exist in AN.

Method: A total of 71 acutely underweight female inpatients with AN (acAN); 52 women long-term weight-recovered from AN (recAN); and 120 healthy control women completed the Delaying Gratification Inventory (DGI).

Seeing things differently: Gaze shapes neural signal during mentalizing according to emotional awareness.

Studies on social cognition often use complex visual stimuli to asses neural processes attributed to abilities like "mentalizing" or "Theory of Mind" (ToM). During the processing of these stimuli, eye gaze, however, shapes neural signal patterns. Individual differences in neural operations on social cognition may therefore be obscured if individuals' gaze behavior differs systematically.