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. 2012 Oct;74(8):869-72.
doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e31826af636. Epub 2012 Sep 21.

Set-shifting among adolescents with bulimic spectrum eating disorders

Alison M Darcy  1 , Kathleen Kara Fitzpatrick, Danielle Colborn, Stephanie Manasse, Nandini Datta, Vandana Aspen, Colleen Stiles Shields, Daniel Le Grange, James Lock
Affiliations

Set-shifting among adolescents with bulimic spectrum eating disorders

Alison M Darcy et al. Psychosom Med. 2012 Oct.

Abstract

Objective: Set-shifting difficulties are observed among adults with bulimia nervosa (BN). This study aimed to assess whether adolescents with BN and BN spectrum eating disorders exhibit set-shifting problems relative to healthy controls.

Methods: Neurocognitive data from 23 adolescents with BN were compared with those from 31 adolescents with BN-type eating disorder not otherwise specified and 22 healthy controls on various measures of set-shifting (Trail Making Task [shift task], Color-Word Interference, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Brixton Spatial Anticipation Task).

Results: No significant differences in set-shifting tasks were found among groups (p >.35), and effect sizes were small (Cohen f < 0.17).

Conclusions: Cognitive inflexibility may develop over time because of the eating disorder, although it is possible that there is a subset of individuals in whom early neurocognitive difficulty may result in a longer illness trajectory. Future research should investigate the existence of neurocognitive taxons in larger samples and use longitudinal designs to fully explore biomarkers and illness effects.

Trial registration: clinicaltrials.gov NCT00879151.

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References

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