View clinical trials related to Bulimia Nervosa.
Filter by:The ability to mentally recall a motor act without any overt movement is called motor imagery (MI). The movement simulation that occurs on a cognitive level can be seen as a way in which we express the mental representation of the body in action. MI tasks can be used as a proxy for the exploration of the mental representations of the body. Interestingly, MI tasks differ in the degree of action monitoring required to resolve the task. More in detail, we can allocate MI tasks along a continuum that goes from more implicit MI tasks (less action monitoring required for the resolution of the task) to more explicit MI tasks (more action monitoring required for the resolution of the task). Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are both characterized by body image distortion and impairments (i.e. overestimation of the perceived body), however, on a different state of the physical body: on one hand we have a highly malnourished body, on the other hand, we might have a healthy-looking body or an overweight body. As above mentioned, MI tasks can be used as a proxy for the exploration of the mental representations of the body and people affected by AN and BN show impairment on their imagined body. This means that people affected by AN and BN might respond differently when assessed for their MI abilities. We hypothesize that people affected by AN might show greater impairment in their motor imagery abilities because of the greater discrepancy between the physical body (malnourished) and the mental body representation in comparison to people affected by BN, who usually have a health weight, even an altered body representation. Nevertheless, we might expect the alteration of body representation not strictly linked to the physical body dimensions, in the case of no difference between AN and BN. This would be of relevance for the creation of rehabilitative programs.
Alexithymia is often found in patients suffering from anorexia nervosa or from bulimia. Art-therapy is widely used in this indication without there is a study in the literature assessing it. ALEXART is an observational prospective multicenter cohort pilot study, assessing the effect at 3 months of art therapy on alexithymia, in patients presenting anorexia nervosa or bulimia.
The role of impulsivity and its contribution to suicidal behavior seems intuitively clear. Empirical results have proved the existence of a relationship between the two yet many questions are left unanswered, especially what differentiates suicide ideators from attempters.. Obsessive thinking patterns are thought processes which share a repetitive behavior domain and are exerted by an inner voice. 3 types of obsessive thinking patterns are self destructive thoughts, ruminations and overvalued ideas. Impulsivity and obsessive thinking patterns are presumed to have a common mechanism of behaviors which are resulted from basal ganglia dysregulation and thus effect inhibition. Novel research in the field of decision making could help to learn more about behavioral patterns associated with self harm behavior and suicide. Eating Disorders involve suicidal and self harm behavior, which both feature impulsivity and obsessive thinking patterns. The investigators study proposes a 3-step theoretical model which asserts there is a connection between impulsivity, obsessive thinking and poor decision making, all effecting self harm behavior. Contemporary research has not been able to fully understand the nature of impulsivity and its effect on self harm behavior, including eating disorders symptoms, nor addressed the impact of obsessive thinking patterns on the latter. 100 female participants with Eating Disorders and suicidal behavior will be recruited for the proposed research. Subjects will be given self-report questionnaires and computerized behavioral tasks. A one way ANOVA of two eating disorder subgroups, impulsive and non impulsive, will be conducted, following a hierarchical multiple regression with self harm behavior being the dependent variable.
Adoption, twin and family studies have reported that obesity has a strong heritable component and in particular, it has been suggested that BMI in adults is due to genetic influence rather than shared family environment. Binge eating in obese patients was described. Therefore, it has been proposed that binge eating disorder (BED) may contribute to obesity in some individuals. Pharmacological studies reported that topiramate plays an important role in the treatment of binge eating disorder. It has been observed improvement of co-occurring binge eating disorder in patients receiving topiramate for treatment of mood disorders. In addition, topiramate was associated with anorexia and weight loss in clinical trials with epilepsy patients. Also, topiramate has been demonstrated efficacy in pilot and controlled studies for binge eating disorder (BED) associated with obesity. Genetic studies will be important to elucidate the mechanism by which putative susceptibility variation in candidate genes influences in pharmacological improvement of binge eating disorder in obese patients treated with topiramate. Connecting drug response with relevant functional DNA variants and differences in brain regions represents the ultimate goal for pharmacogenetic research playing an important role in advancing this understanding. The use of brain imaging combined with genetics can aid in understanding the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease. Additionally, brain imaging has the ability to bridge between preclinical research and human pharmacological studies. This will be a naturalistic clinical study designed to analyze the effect of genetic variants and neurofunctional brain areas associated with food craving in patients with obesity and binge eating disorder responders to topiramate. Hypothesis: The use of topiramate in obese subjects with binge eating disorder is associated with a differential gene variants and different activation brain areas in subjects that showed a reduction of food craving and weight lost.