Abstract
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is an illness characterized by aversion to ingestion of normally palatable foods. We examined whether there is a primary disturbance of taste processing and experience of pleasure using a sucrose/water task in conjunction with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To avoid confounding effects of illness, 16 women recovered from restricting-type AN were compared to 16 control women (CW). We used a region of interest-based fMRI approach to test the idea that individuals with AN have differential neural activation in primary and secondary taste cortical regions after sucrose and water administration. Compared to CW, individuals recovered from AN showed a significantly lower neural activation of the insula, including the primary cortical taste region, and ventral and dorsal striatum to both sucrose and water. In addition, insular neural activity correlated with pleasantness ratings for sucrose in CW, but not in AN subjects. Altered taste processing may occur in AN, based on differences in activity in insular–striatal circuits. These data provide the first evidence that individuals with AN process taste stimuli differently than controls, based on differences in neural activation patterns.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Eva Gerardi for the manuscript preparation. The authors are indebted to the participating subjects for their contribution of time and effort in support of this study.
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Funding for this work was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) MH046001, MH04298, and K05-MH01894 and grant support from Erwin-Schrödinger Research Fellowship of the Austrian Science Fund (J2188 and J2359-B02) to Ursula Bailer. Dr Kaye has received salary support from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, San Diego; Research funding/support from the NIMH; Research funding for an investigator initiated treatment study from Astra-Zeneca and consulting fees from Lundbeck. In addition, there are honoraria for presentations from academic institutions and meetings, and compensation for grant review activities from the National Institutes of Health.
The remaining authors, A Wagner, H Aizenstein, L Mazurkewicz, J Fudge, G Frank, K Putnam, and L Fischer declare that, except for income received from our primary employers and the above-mentioned funding, no further financial support or compensation has been received from any individual or corporate entity over the past 3 years for research or professional service and there are no personal financial holdings that could be perceived as constituting a potential conflict of interest.
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Wagner, A., Aizenstein, H., Mazurkewicz, L. et al. Altered Insula Response to Taste Stimuli in Individuals Recovered from Restricting-Type Anorexia Nervosa. Neuropsychopharmacol 33, 513–523 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1301443
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1301443
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