德国波鸿大学最新研究发现，女性厌食症患者脑中两个负责处理身体形象区域的灰质明显减少。这一成果有助于解释厌食症患者总是觉得自己肥胖的现象。
波鸿大学5日发表公报说，波鸿大学认知神经科学学院的研究小组对30名年龄相仿的女性进行了测试，其中15名是厌食症患者，另15名是健康女性。研究人员要求所有被测试者从电脑上多个黑色身体形象中选出符合自己体型的一个。之后，研究人员又找来10位女性，以更客观的视角将被测试者照片与其在电脑中的体型相匹配。结果显示，与这10名评判者的判断相比，患厌食症的女性对自己体型的判断普遍偏胖，而健康女性对自己体型的判断则偏苗条。
研究人员对被测试者脑部进行了核磁共振检查，结果显示，厌食症患者由于体重偏轻，其脑容量普遍少于健康女性。而且厌食症患者位于大脑颞叶后上方和外侧枕叶皮质的两个负责形体感知区域的灰质大量减少。
研究人员说，这些在厌食症患者脑部发现的变化有望解释厌食症女性对自身形体的错误感知。但大脑灰质的减少是引发厌食症的原因还是其后果仍有待研究。
这一成果发表于最新一期美国专业杂志《行为大脑研究》上。
推荐原始出处：
Behavioural Brain Research doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2009.08.035
Reduction of gray matter density in the extrastriate body area in women with anorexia nervosa
Boris Suchana, , , Martin Buschb, Dietmar Schultec, Dietrich Gr?nermeyerb, Stephan Herpertzd and Silja Vocksc
aInstitute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neuropsychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
bDepartment of Radiology, University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany
cDepartment of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Ruhr-University, Bochum, Germany
dDepartment of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Ruhr-University, Bochum, Germany
Body processing has been associated functionally to the so called extrastriate body area (EBA) which is located in the lateral occipital cortex. As body image disturbance is one of the main diagnostic criteria in anorexia nervosa (AN) this study aimed at looking for alterations in gray matter density in women with (AN) especially in the EBA. High resolution T1 images from 15 women with AN and 15 age matched healthy controls women were contrasted using voxel based morphometry (VBM). Additionally functional localizer scans were used to determine functionally the EBA of each participant. In general, total gray matter volumes did differ between groups. VBM results yielded evidence for a reduction of gray matter density in the left EBA. This reduction, which resulted from whole brain analysis, was localised within the activation cluster of the EBA localizer scan. The current results provide for the first time evidence for structural alterations in the EBA in patients with AN which might suggest that body image distortion is related at least in part to structural alteration in the EBA.
