Neural mechanisms of biased attention towards disorder-salient stimuli in bulimia nervosa

神经性暴食症患者偏向注意障碍-显著刺激的神经机制 项目摘要/摘要 进食障碍，如神经性暴食症(BN)，其特征是被认为是异常的进食行为 通过对体重、体型和食物的高估和关注来促进和维持。它有 有人认为，过度关注身体形象，以及影响身体形象的因素(例如，食物和 进食)，可能通过引导有限的认知来维持BN的进食行为紊乱和其他症状 资源朝向紊乱--显著刺激，从而干扰知觉和认知任务和扭曲 个体如何感知和解释环境。然而，宇宙的时间动力学 注意投入、注意偏向于显著障碍刺激的特异性，以及潜在的神经 可能导致这些问题的机制仍然知之甚少。尽管最近几年见证了 与进食障碍相关的基础认知和神经科学研究显著增加，总体上 承认该领域在理解精神障碍方面的进展落后于其他精神障碍 这种使人衰弱的精神疾病的大脑回路和病理生理学。获得这样的理解是 如果要实现针对BN的改进治疗方式的承诺，这一点至关重要。拟议的项目将 通过使用创新的行为和电生理方法来测量 注意力偏向障碍-显著刺激，最先进的成像方法评估大脑功能 连通性，以及基于相关性的统计方法，以检查两者之间的关系。这 将提供一种融合的方法来测试有关核心流程的特定假设，这些核心流程可能 在国阵中断。关于BN中注意偏向的神经基础的基础知识可以为深入了解 以适应不良为特征的大量精神和神经疾病的性质 与障碍相关的刺激，如焦虑、情绪和药物使用障碍。此外，理解 注意偏向及其神经基础有助于新的行为和大脑的发展 有效治疗这些衰弱疾病的基于刺激的方法。

Neural mechanisms of biased attention towards disorder-salient stimuli in bulimia nervosa PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa (BN) are characterized by aberrant eating behaviors that are thought to be promoted and maintained by an overvaluation of and preoccupation with weight, shape, and food. It has been suggested that excessive concern with body image, and factors that affect body image (e.g., food and eating), may maintain disordered eating behavior and other symptoms of BN by directing limited cognitive resources towards disorder-salient stimuli, thereby interfering with perceptual and cognitive tasks and distorting how the environment is perceived and interpreted by the individual. However, the temporal dynamics of attentional engagement, the specificity of attention biases to disorder-salient stimuli, and the underlying neural mechanisms that may give rise to them are still poorly understood. Although recent years have witnessed a marked increase in basic cognitive and neuroscience research related to eating disorders, it is generally acknowledged that the field lags behind other psychiatric disorders in terms of progress in understanding the brain circuits and pathophysiology of this debilitating form of mental illness. Gaining this understanding is critical if the promise of refined treatment modalities targeting BN is to be realized. The proposed project will contribute to this endeavor by using innovative behavioral and electrophysiological methods to measure attention biases towards disorder-salient stimuli, state-of-the-art imaging methods to assess brain functional connectivity, and correlation-based statistical approaches to examine the relationship between the two. This will provide a convergent approach that tests specific hypotheses regarding core processes that may be disrupted in BN. Basic knowledge about the neural basis of attention biases in BN can provide insights into the nature of a large number of psychiatric and neurological disorders that feature maladaptive preoccupations with disorder-relevant stimuli, such as anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders. Moreover, understanding attention biases and their neural bases can contribute to the development of novel behavioral and brain stimulation-based methods of effectively treating these debilitating conditions.