Pilot Study of Deep Brain Stimulation for Severe Anorexia nervosa
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Hungry for Reward :a translational study of brain processes underpinning Anorexia Nervosa I: A pilot investigation of the ethics, practice and neural basis of Deep Brain Stimulation to the Nucleus Accumbens in Severe Intractible Anorexia Nervosa.
IRAS ID
128658
Contact name
Tipu Aziz
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Research Services
Duration of Study in the UK
10 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) has the highest mortality of any psychiatric disorder and a paucity of effective treatments. AN becomes intractable in around 20%, resulting in huge individual and healthcare costs. Exploration of underlying processes and novel treatment strategies is thus crucial. This is a pilot study of a novel translational approach to the investigation and treatment of severe AN. The aims are (1) to explore the safety, acceptability and feasibility of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for AN (2) to map neural mechanisms underpinning aberrant reward and optimise DBS targets. The study will involve 3 consenting adults with full mental capacity, and will last 12 months. It incorporates an ethical sub-study including assessment of capacity and informed consent. It combines complementary forms of cutting-edge neuroimaging including DTI, fMRI and MEG. These will be complimentary in helping identify the best strategy for treating severe AN using DBS. Individuals with severe intractable AN will be eligible to take part. The study will be conducted in Oxford at the John Radcliffe and Warneford Hospitals. The individuals will have preoperative ethical, neuroimaging and psychological assessments, then DBS to the Nucleus accumbens, followed by a 9 month follow-up period with 6-weekly joint neurosurgical - psychiatric and psychological assessments and 3- monthly MEG scans. The study will further our understanding of food reward processes in general and AN in particular-indeed promises to provide important information which may revolutionize future treatments. The proposal builds upon a body of research investigating the role of aberrant reward processes in AN and exploits our complementary research experience in AN using experimental behavioural strategies (Park), fMRI (Harmer), MEG (Nobre) and DBS & DTI (Aziz) to establish a powerful translational research strategy. The study is part of an MRC programme and linked with a separate case-control multimodal imaging study generating mutually informative data.
REC name
South Central - Oxford A Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/SC/0267
Date of REC Opinion
3 Jul 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion