Neuropsychological Findings in Eating Disorders

Neuropsychological studies attempt to clarify whether cognitive deficits are present in patients with eating disorders, whether these are a consequence of the illness (e.g., due to starvation) and reversible, or represent trait characteristics of the disorder that contribute to its development. Although not all studies have yielded consistent findings, overall, some eating disorder-specific deficits have emerged, particularly in the areas of attentional bias (attentional bias for body- and food-related stimuli), inhibitory control, central coherence, and theory of mind, implicit learning performance, set-shifting, decision-making, and reward processing. Meta-analyses suggest that some of these neurocognitive impairments are specific to certain eating disorders, while others are more consistent across different diagnostic categories. Further impairments appear to be primarily associated with starvation. The effectiveness of specific cognitive remediation programs for treating neuropsychological deficits in eating disorders remains to be further investigated.