Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T10:14:41.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of the right parietal lobe in anorexia nervosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2009

D. Nico ,
E. Daprati ,
N. Nighoghossian ,
E. Carrier ,
J.-R. Duhamel  and
A. Sirigu
D. Nico
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
E. Daprati
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France Dipartimento di Neuroscienze and Centro di Biomedicina Spaziale, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy Dipartimento di Fisiologia Neuromotoria, IRCCS Fondazione SantaLucia, Rome, Italy
N. Nighoghossian
Affiliation:
Hôpital Neurologique Pierre Wertheimer, Lyon, France
E. Carrier
Affiliation:
Clinique Saint Vincent de Paul, Lyon, France
J.-R. Duhamel
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
A. Sirigu*
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr A. Sirigu, Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, 67, Blv Pinel, 69675Bron, France. (Email: sirigu@isc.cnrs.fr)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) overestimate their size despite being severely underweight. Whether this misperception echoes an underlying emotional disturbance or also reflects a genuine body-representation deficit is debatable. Current measures inquire directly about subjective perception of body image, thus distinguishing poorly between top-down effects of emotions/attitudes towards the body and disturbances due to proprioceptive disorders/distorted body schema. Disorders of body representation also emerge following damage to the right parietal lobe. The possibility that parietal dysfunction might contribute to AN is suspected, based on the demonstrated association of spatial impairments, comparable to those found after parietal lesion, with this syndrome.

Method

We used a behavioral task to compare body knowledge in severe anorexics (n=8), healthy volunteers (n=11) and stroke patients with focal damage to the left/right parietal lobe (n=4). We applied a psychophysical procedure based on the perception, in the dark, of an approaching visual stimulus that was turned off before reaching the observer. Participants had to predict whether the stimulus would have hit/missed their body, had it continued its linear motion.

Results

Healthy volunteers and left parietal patients estimated body boundaries very close to the real ones. Conversely, anorexics and right parietal patients underestimated eccentricity of their left body boundary.

Conclusions

These findings are in line with the role the parietal cortex plays in developing and maintaining body representation, and support the possibility for a neuropsychological component in the pathogenesis of anorexia, offering alternative approaches to treatment of the disorder.

Keywords

Anorexia nervosabasal gangliabody representationparietal lobespatial hemineglect
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 9 , September 2010 , pp. 1531 - 1539
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, SF, von Lojewski, A, Anderson, G, Clarke, S, Russell, J (2009). Feelings: what questions best discriminate women with and without eating disorders? Eating and Weight Disorders 14, e6–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adair, JC, Barrett, AM (2008). Spatial neglect: clinical and neuroscience review: a wealth of information on the poverty of spatial attention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1142, 21–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
APA (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn). American Psychiatric Association: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Audenaert, K, Van Laere, K, Dumont, F, Vervaet, M, Goethals, I, Slegers, G, Mertens, J, van Heeringen, C, Dierckx, RA (2003). Decreased 5-HT2a receptor binding in patients with anorexia nervosa. Journal of Nuclear Medicine 44, 163–169.Google ScholarPubMed
Benninghoven, D, Raykowski, L, Solzbacher, S, Kunzendorf, S, Jantschek, G (2007). Body images of patients with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and female control subjects: a comparison with male ideals of female attractiveness. Body Image 4, 51–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benson, PJ, Emery, JL, Cohen-Tovée, EM, Tovée, MJ (1999). A computer-graphic technique for the study of body size perception and body types. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 3, 446–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, SJ, Taylor, MJ, Rovet, JF, Goldberg, E, Hood, J, Wachsmuth, R, Azcue, MP, Pencharz, PB (1997). Assessment of brain function in adolescent anorexia nervosa before and after weight gain. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 19, 20–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braun, CM, Chouinard, MJ (1992). Is anorexia nervosa a neuropsychological disease? Neuropsychology Review 3, 171–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chowdhury, U, Gordon, I, Lask, B, Watkins, B, Watt, H, Christie, D (2003). Early-onset anorexia nervosa: is there evidence of limbic system imbalance? International Journal of Eating Disorders 33, 388–396.Google ScholarPubMed
Clower, DM, Dum, RP, Strick, PL (2005). Basal ganglia and cerebellar inputs to ‘AIP’. Cerebral Cortex 15, 913–920.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, PJ, Taylor, MJ, Cooper, Z, Fairburn, CG (1987). The development and validation of the Body Shape Questionnaire. International Journal of Eating Disorders 6, 485–494.3.0.CO;2-O>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuzzolaro, M, Vetrone, G, Marano, G, Garfinkel, PE (2006). The Body Uneasiness Test (BUT): development and validation of a new body image assessment scale. Eating and Weight Disorders 11, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duhamel, J-R, Colby, CL, Goldberg, ME (1998). Ventral intraparietal area of the macaque: congruent visual and somatic response properties. Journal of Neurophysiology 79, 126–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epstein, J, Wiseman, CV, Sunday, SR, Klapper, F, Alkalay, L, Halmi, KA (2001). Neurocognitive evidence favors ‘top down’ over ‘bottom up’ mechanisms in the pathogenesis of body size distortions in anorexia nervosa. Eating and Weight Disorders 6, 140–147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fogassi, L, Gallese, V, Fadiga, L, Luppino, G, Matelli, M, Rizzolatti, G (1996). Coding of peripersonal space in inferior premotor cortex (area F4). Journal of Neurophysiology 76, 141–157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frank, GK, Bailer, UF, Henry, S, Wagner, A, Kaye, WH (2004). Neuroimaging studies in eating disorders. CNS Spectrums 9, 539–548.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gallagher, S (2000). Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Science 4, 14–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geary, DC, Saults, SJ, Liu, F, Hoard, MK (2000). Sex differences in spatial cognition, computational fluency and arithmetical reasoning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 77, 337–353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gold, JI, Shadlen, MN (2007). The neural basis of decision making. Annual Review of Neuroscience 30, 535–574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graziano, MS, Cooke, DF (2006). Parieto-frontal interactions personal space and defensive behaviour. Neuropsychologia 44, 845–859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graziano, MS, Gross, CG (1995). The representation of extrapersonal space: a possible role for bimodal, visuo-tactile neurons. In The Cognitive Neurosciences (ed. Gazzaniga, M. S.), pp. 1021–1034. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Grunwald, M, Ettrich, C, Assmann, B, Dähne, A, Krause, W, Busse, F, Gertz, HJ (2001 a). Deficits in haptic perception and right parietal theta power changes in patients with anorexia nervosa before and after weight gain. International Journal of Eating Disorders 29, 417–428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grunwald, M, Ettrich, C, Busse, F, Assmann, B, Dähne, A, Gertz, HJ (2002). Angle paradigm. A new method to measure right parietal dysfunctions in anorexia nervosa. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 17, 485–496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grunwald, M, Ettrich, C, Krause, W, Assmann, B, Dähne, A, Weiss, T, Gertz, HJ (2001 b). Haptic perception in anorexia nervosa before and after weight gain. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 23, 520–529.Google ScholarPubMed
Harari, D, Furst, M, Kiryati, N, Caspi, A, Davidson, M (2001). A computer-based method for the assessment of body-image distortions in anorexia-nervosa patients. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 5, 311–319.Google ScholarPubMed
Heilman, KM, Watson, RT, Valenstein, E (2003). Neglect and related disorders. In Clinical Neuropsychology (ed. Heilman, K. M. and Valenstein, E.), pp. 296–346. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karnath, HO, Thier, P (1997). Parietal Lobe Contributions to Orientation in 3D Space. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.Google Scholar
Kaye, WH, Frank, GK, McConaha, C (1999). Altered dopamine activity after recovery from restricting-type anorexia nervosa. Neuropsychopharmacology 21, 503–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kerkhoff, G (2001). Spatial hemineglect in humans. Progress in Neurobiology 63, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kinsbourne, M, Bemporad, JR (1984). Lateralization of emotion: a model and the evidence. In The Psychobiology of Affective Development (ed. Fox, A. and Davidson, R. J.), pp. 259–291. Lawrence Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ.Google Scholar
Kojima, S, Nagai, N, Nakabeppu, Y, Muranaga, T, Deguchi, D, Nakajo, M, Masuda, A, Nozoe, S, Naruo, T (2005). Comparison of regional cerebral blood flow in patients with anorexia nervosa before and after weight gain. Psychiatry Research 140, 251–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krieg, JC, Holthoff, V, Schreiber, W, Pirke, KM, Herholz, K (1991). Glucose metabolism in the caudate nuclei of patients with eating disorders measured by PET. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 240, 331–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lacquaniti, F (1997). Frames of reference in sensorimotor coordination. In Handbook of Neuropsychology, vol. 11 (ed. Boller, F. and Grafman, J.), pp. 27–64. Elsevier: Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Lask, B, Gordon, I, Christie, D, Frampton, I, Chowdhury, U, Watkins, B (2005). Functional neuroimaging in early-onset anorexia nervosa. International Journal of Eating Disorders 37, S49–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Letosa-Porta, A, Ferrer-Garcia, M, Gutiérrez-Maldonado, J (2005). A program for assessing body image disturbance using adjustable partial image distortion. Behavior Research Methods 37, 638–643.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maggia, G, Bianchi, B (1998). Differential hemispheric involvement in anorexia nervosa. Eating and Weight Disorders 3, 100–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murayama, Y, Weber, B, Saleem, KS, Augath, M, Logothetis, NK (2006). Tracing neural circuits in vivo with Mn-enhanced MRI. Magnetic Resonance Imaging 24, 349–358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Platt, ML, Glimcher, PW (1999). Neural correlates of decision variables in parietal cortex. Nature 400, 233–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosen, JC, Srebnik, D, Saltzberg, E, Wendt, S (1991). Development of a body image avoidance questionnaire. Psychological Assessment 1, 32–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, A, Knotter, A, Barbe, P, Raich, R, Chabrol, H (2005). Validation of the French version of the Body Shape Questionnaire. Encephale 31, 162–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schultz, W, Tremblay, L, Hollerman, JR (2003). Changes in behavior-related neuronal activity in the striatum during learning. Trends in Neuroscience 26, 321–328.Google ScholarPubMed
Shafran, R, Fairburn, CG (2002). A new ecologically valid method to assess body size estimation and body size dissatisfaction. International Journal of Eating Disorders 32, 458–465.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sirigu, A, Grafman, J, Bressler, K, Sunderland, T (1991). Multiple representations contribute to body knowledge processing: evidence from a case of autotopagnosia. Brain 114, 629–642.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skrzypek, S, Wehmeier, PM, Remschmidt, H (2001). Body image assessment using body size estimation in recent studies on anorexia nervosa. A brief review. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 10, 215–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smeets, MA, Smit, F, Panhuysen, GE, Ingleby, JD (1997). The influence of methodological differences on the outcome of body size estimation studies in anorexia nervosa. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 36, 263–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steinglass, J, Walsh, BT (2006). Habit learning and anorexia nervosa: a cognitive neuroscience hypothesis. International Journal of Eating Disorders 39, 267–275.Google ScholarPubMed
Sugrue, LP, Corrado, GS, Newsome, WT (2004). Matching behavior and the representation of value in the parietal cortex. Science 304, 1782–1787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Surgenor, LJ, Maguire, S, Russell, J, Touyz, S (2007). Self-liking and self-competence: relationship to symptoms of anorexia nervosa. European Eating Disorders Review 15, 139–145.Google ScholarPubMed
Swinbourne, JM, Touyz, SW (2007). The co-morbidity of eating disorders and anxiety disorders: a review. European Eating Disorders Review 15, 253–274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wagner, A, Aizenstein, H, Venkatraman, VK, Fudge, J, May, JC, Mazurkewicz, L, Frank, GK, Bailer, UF, Fischer, L, Nguyen, V, Carter, C, Putnam, K, Kaye, WH (2007). Altered reward processing in women recovered from anorexia nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry 164, 1842–1849.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wagner, A, Ruf, M, Braus, DF, Schmidt, MH (2003). Neuronal activity changes and body image distortion in anorexia nervosa. Neuroreport 14, 2193–2197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed