The BEACON study

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Brain imaging Of Emotion And Cognition Of adolescents with anorexia Nervosa (The BEACON study)

• IRAS ID

  237222

• Contact name

  Kate Tchanturia

• Contact email

  kate.tchanturia@kcl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  King's College London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 7 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  Difficulties in cognitive and social-emotional processing has been observed in adults with anorexia nervosa (AN) and, albeit in an attenuated form, in both adolescents with AN and unaffected relatives. It is thought to be a possible underlying mechanism in AN, likely to contribute to both disorder vulnerability and maintenance. Furthermore, high incidence of co-morbid autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, including difficulties in cognitive flexibility and social interactions, have been reported among those with AN. Such symptoms have been recently speculated to further contribute to treatment resistance and long duration of illness. Therefore, elucidating the neural correlates of these processes and mechanisms could help to give a better understanding of possible underlying factors and develop more targeted treatments.

  AIMS:
  This study aims to investigate the brain correlates of cognitive and emotion processing in adolescents and emerging adults with AN, and investigate whether differential patterns of brain function can be matched to illness severity. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the impact of co-morbid ASD symptoms on these processes as well as treatment response at a 6-month follow-up.

  SETTING:
  Participants with AN will be recruited for the Child and Adolescent Eating Disorder Service, South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. Healthy control participants will be recruited from advertisements in local community areas (e.g. libraries).

  APPROACH:
  All participants will be asked to complete ADOS clinical interview to assess the presence of ASD symptoms as well as an MRI scan to examine both structural and functional differences between adolescents with an acute AN, those recovered from AN, and healthy control adolescents and emerging adults (all aged between 12-25 years). In addition to self-report questionnaires, participants will be asked to complete neuropsychological tasks in and out of the MRI scanner.

• REC name

  London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/LO/2071

• Date of REC Opinion

  21 Feb 2018

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion