Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Oct;28(4):629-640.
doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2019.05.007. Epub 2019 Jul 4.

The Neurobiology of Eating Disorders

Guido K W Frank  1 , Megan E Shott  2 , Marisa C DeGuzman  3
Affiliations
Review

The Neurobiology of Eating Disorders

Guido K W Frank et al. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Eating disorders are severe psychiatric illnesses with a typical age of onset in adolescence. Brain research in youth and young adults may help us identify specific neurobiology that contributes to onset and maintenance of those disorders. This article provides a state-of-the-art review of our current understanding of the neurobiology of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. This includes brain structure and function studies to understand food restriction, binge-eating or purging behaviors, cognitive and emotional factors, as well as interoception. Binge-eating disorder and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder are also discussed, but the literature is still very small.

Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Brain; Bulimia nervosa; Eating disorder; Imaging; Neurobiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Summary of neurobiological findings in eating disorders. rec, recovered; AN, anorexia nervosa; BN, bulimia nervosa
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association. Desk reference to the diagnostic criteria from DSM-5. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2013.
    1. Filler A Magnetic resonance neurography and diffusion tensor imaging: origins, history, and clinical impact of the first 50,000 cases with an assessment of efficacy and utility in a prospective 5000-patient study group. Neurosurgery. 2009;65(4 Suppl):A29–43. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Raichle ME. Behind the scenes of functional brain imaging: a historical and physiological perspective. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998;95(3):765–772. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vengeliene V, Bespalov A, Rossmanith M, et al. Towards trans-diagnostic mechanisms in psychiatry: neurobehavioral profile of rats with a loss-of-function point mutation in the dopamine transporter gene. Dis Model Mech. 2017;10(4):451–461. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shaw P, Kabani NJ, Lerch JP, et al. Neurodevelopmental trajectories of the human cerebral cortex. J Neurosci. 2008;28(14):3586–3594. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types