Table 3.

Functional MRI studies of social behavior in eating disorders

Author	Participants	Stimuli	Neural differences
Ashworth et al105	BN 12 HC 16	Shown angry and disgusted faces as well as simple shapes.	BN with decreased precuneus activations for both anger and disgust. Also decreased right amygdala activation for anger.
McAdams and Krawczyk100,*	recAN 17 HC 17	Social attribution task: subjects compare movements of shapes using both biological (social: friends?) and nonbiological (physical: same weight?) movements.	AN group with less activation of many social cognition regions, including rTPJ in biological movements. No significant differences between AN and HC in activations related to nonbiological condition.
Schulte-Ruther et al102,*	teenAN19 teenHC 20	Similar task as above. Scanned before treatment and at discharge. 12-month clinical follow-up to assess recovery.	AN group with less activation of mPFC and temporal cortex relative to HC. Hypoactivation of mPFC at initial treatment associated with failure to maintain weight in follow-up.
McAdams and Krawczyk101,*	BN 17 AN 18 HC 18	Same tasks as McAdams100 and 2014111; Social attribution, social identity, and physical identity tasks.	BN subjects with differences intermediate of the AN and HC subjects: significant differences in all regions relative to HC and save the cingulate cluster from the physical identity task.
McAdams and Krawczyk111,*	recAN 18 HC 18	Identity appraisal statements with social or physical descriptors.	HC with more activity in cingulate for physical descriptors of self and precuneus for social descriptors of self relative to AN. Largest differences in dACC with HC engaging for third person view of self but AN engaging for first person view of self in social task.
Pringle et al107	BN 11 HC 16	Presented negative social and eating disorder adjectives and asked to rate self-relevance of words.	BN with less activity in precuneus, occipital area, putamen, and amygdala.
Cowdrey et al103,*	recAN 16 HC 16	Shown happy and fearful faces; decided sex.	No differences in groups.
Fonville et al104,*	AN 31 HC 35	Shown images of neutral, happy, and very happy faces in an fMRI scanner; decided sex.	AN with increased right fusiform gyrus for all expressions.
Miyake et al108	AN 30 HC 20	Asked to select most negative word (social adjectives) or neutral word.	Alexithymia negatively correlated with activation of PCC and ACC. AN with increased frontal activations for negative words.
Suda et al109	AN 20 HC 15	Viewed images of normal weight individuals in body checking behavior or a neutral body action.	AN showed less activation of both mPFC and right fusiform gyrus when compared to HC for body checking compared to neutral actions.

Note:

^*Similar tasks presented adjacent to these studies.

Abbreviations: ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; AN, anorexia nervosa; AN-BP, binge–purge anorexia nervosa; AN-R, restricting anorexia nervosa; BN, bulimia nervosa; cing, cingulate; dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; fMRI, functional MRI; HC, healthy controls; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; mPFC, medial prefrontal cortex; PCC, posterior cingulate cortex; recBN, recovered bulimia nervosa; recAN, recovered anorexia nervosa; rTPJ, right temporal parietal junction; teenAN, teenagers with anorexia nervosa; teenHC, teenagers healthy control.