SCAN study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Social Cognition in Anorexia Nervosa: SCAN Study
IRAS ID
297864
Contact name
Jenni Leppanen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King’s College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
10.17605/OSF.IO/2U8QG, OSF Registration DOI
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
BACKGROUND:
Theoretical models have postulated that social-emotional processing difficulties have a key in perpetuating anorexia nervosa (AN) by increasing conflict and isolation. Through these interpersonal difficulties the illness has more room to grow and the person with AN might feel greater need to rely on eating disorder related behaviours as coping mechanisms. However, in experimental and clinical research there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding what these difficulties might look like in practice and how they could be measured or targeted in treatment. This study aims to address this gap in literature by piloting and evaluating four new social cognition tasks designed to assess emotional reactivity and interpretation biases in and outside of neuroimaging environment. The tasks have been created based on personal stories told by people with lived experience of AN and have been designed to address criticisms laid at previous paradigms, such as the use of static images.AIMS:
This study will aim to evaluate the four new tasks assessing emotional reactivity and interpretation in and outside of neuroimaging environment using a case-control design. We will also explore the extent to which social-emotional processing during these tasks is associated with illness severity and longitudinal outcomes.SETTING:
The study will be conducted at King’s College London. Participants with AN will be recruited from local eating disorders services at South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. Healthy comparison participants will be recruited from the local community.APPROACH:
This study will use mixed case-control design with both cross-sectional and longitudinal elements. We will examine differences between young people with and without AN in behavioural and brain responses emotionally provoking film stimuli as well as ambiguous emotional films. Longitudinally we will explore the associations between performance on these tasks and self-reported symptomatology and illness stage assessed at two follow-up time points.REC name
London - South East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/LO/0368
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jun 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion