What is it about?
We present a neuroscience and human brain imaging–based model that incorporates individual motivations to change eating, fear conditioning and biological adaptations leading to the development of a vicious cycle and ongoing eating disorder behaviors.
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Why is it important?
Eating disorders are among the deadliest disorders in psychiatry and despite intensive treatment, many with those disorders relapse or have a long and enduring course that takes away years of that person's life. Research has identified environmental, psychological, and biological risk factors that can contribute to the the development of eating disorders. Nevertheless, the patterns of self-starvation, binge eating, and purging behaviors are difficult to reconcile with the typical mechanisms that regulate appetite, hunger, and satiety. The article that is based on animal and human research describes how individuals with eating disorders can become trapped in a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape from, helps bring those behaviors out of the black box to educate patients and their loved ones, and provides directions for developing new treatments to target key mechanisms.
Perspectives
Eating disorders are difficult to understand and also difficult to treat. I hope that this article helps view eating disorders as problems with clear biological underpinnings that we need to better target to support sustained recovery and prevent relapse.
Guido Frank
University of California San Diego
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Why Don’t You Just Eat? Neuroscience and the Enigma of Eating Disorders, FOCUS The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, July 2024, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.focus.20240006.
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