Brain Structure and function of children at risk for eating disorders.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Brain structure and function of children at high-risk for eating disorders.
IRAS ID
166369
Contact name
Nadia Micali
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Eating disorders (ED) have a complex aetiology which is not fully understood, making intervention and treatment difficult. Both genetic and environmental influences have been shown to contribute to the development of eating disorders. Across populations and using different methods, twin and adoptions studies have found moderate-to-high heritability in eating disorders. These genetic influences, which predate symptom onset, contribute to risk for eating disorders.
Furthermore, evidence suggests that ED groups show differences in their brain structure and function and neuropsychological function compared to healthy controls as well as within diagnostic groups. Brain function and neurocognitive processes have increasingly gained attention as factors that may influence eating disorder risk and identification of these could lead to early and effective intervention.With the aim of better understanding casual mechanisms, we would like to investigate whether children at familial high-risk for eating disorders show the same differences in neuropsychological profile and brain structure. This will help us clarify what differences are linked to susceptibility for an eating disorders and which ones might related to malnutritional aspects of the disorder.
To do this we will recruit mothers with eating disorders as well as controls who have a healthy daughter between the ages of 11 and 15. MRI techniques will be used to investigate brain structure, grey matter volume, and white matter integrity in children of women with lifetime diagnosis of an ED in comparison to control children. Differences in measures of neuropsychological functioning, global cognition, executive function, reward processing and social cognition will be investigated.
REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1613
Date of REC Opinion
15 Oct 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion