Brain Treatments and Eating Disorders

In recent years, several papers highlighted the need to design and implement neurobiologically informed treatments for eating disorders (EDs). Within this framework, non-pharmacological biological therapies have aroused a certain interest, given their ability to modulate the activity of specific brain networks. Neurostimulation techniques can be distinguished into invasive and non-invasive based on whether they stimulate the neural tissue through electrodes that are implanted into the brain or by electrical fields that are applied externally to the scalp. Furthermore, they are differentiated based on whether their therapeutic potential is mediated by their ability to produce seizures or not. Among non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, the most frequently applied are electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), and transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES). Among invasive neurostimulation techniques, the only one that has been applied in the EDs field is deep brain stimulation. Overall, studies investigating these methods in EDs are rather heterogeneous. Nonetheless, they demonstrated some therapeutic potentials that deserve to be addressed by future research. This chapter aims to describe the state of the art, the strengths, and the current limitations of non-invasive neurostimulation treatments in EDs.