During a gambling task in which participants could win or lose money, trials in which patients with anorexia nervosa won money produced brain activity similar to that of control patients during winning trials, but anorexic patients who lost money also had brain activity similar to that of controls who won money, said Dr. Kaye, research director of the eating disorder program at the University of Pittsburgh.
In a separate fMRI study, the taste of sugar produced blunted responses in the insula (the primary taste cortex) of recovered anorexic patients, compared with healthy controls. Unlike in the healthy patients, however, there was no correlation between the taster's rating of pleasantness and the insula's response to sugar in recovered anorexic individuals, he noted.
Even before these data can be used to develop new treatments, it will be useful to let patients understand that this particular temperament is wired into their brains and that they might be able to learn to modulate their feelings and thoughts and develop adaptive coping strategies, said Dr. Kaye, also of the University of California, San Diego.