Study Claims Brain Size Indicates Risk of Developing Eating Disorder

An interesting study claims that the size of the brain could signal the risk of the person developing an eating disorder.

The new study conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine states that teens who suffer an eating disorder called 'anorexia nervosa' have bigger brains compared to the teens who do not suffer from the same eating disorder.

The eating disorder Anorexia Nervosa makes people lose more weight than what is healthy for a person. People with this disorder develop an intense fear of gaining weight even when they are underweight. Till date, the exact cause of this eating disorder is not known. But experts believe genes and hormones play a key role.

The researchers came up with the bigger brain theory after examining a group of adolescents who suffered from anorexia nervosa. They also had a control group where none of the participants suffered this disorder.

"While eating disorders are often triggered by the environment, there are most likely biological mechanisms that have to come together for an individual to develop an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa," says Guido Frank, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at CU School of Medicine.

The researchers state that people with anorexia are able to starve themselves due to the bigger brain. On examining the group they noticed that teen girls with anorexia had a larger insula, which is a portion of the brain that is believed to be involved in taste as well as integrates body perception. They also had larger orbitofrotnal cortex, which is the portion of the brain that alerts the person to stop eating.

The results of anorexia in children as well as adults who recovered from this illness indicate that this eating disorder was due to the larger size of insula and orbitofrontal cortex in the brain.

The study was conducted on 19 teen girls with anorexia and the control group consisted of 22 people. The brain volumes of these participants were studied using magnetic resonance imaging (IMR). Those with anorexia had larger left orbitofrontal, right insular, and bilateral temporal cortex gray matter when compared to the control group. Apart from this, the orbitofrontal gray matter volume related negative with sweet tastes in anorexic patients.

This study supports the previous finding that was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry that states adults with anorexia and individuals who recovered from this illness have different brain sizes.

This study was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.