The Best Science involves Collaboration

Podcast Series with Prof Janet Treasure

We’ve recorded a series of podcasts in which we discuss the science behind different aspects of eating disorders.

We’ve discussed eating disorders and learning

We’ve talked about eating disorders and the brain

And we’ve thought about eating disorders and medication with a guest appearance from Dr Hubertus Himmerich

Would you like to record a podcast on your eating disorder research or experience to help the public better understand eating disorders? If so, please get in touch.

Neural Bases of Bulimia Nervosa with Dr Laura Renshaw-Vuillier and Dr Matt Somerville

This project, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant aims to explore emotional processing and regulation in individuals with bulimia nervosa.

We know that binge eating and purging behaviours may be linked with difficulties regulating emotions and impulses or urges. However, much of the evidence supporting this statement comes from self-report methods which is a problem because this is a group who have also reported difficulties identifying and describing emotions (known as alexithymia).

This is the first project to use electroencephalography (EEG) as an objective method to disentangle emotional processing and regulation in these individuals.

We’re administering three tasks to participants with bulimia nervosa and a non-eating disorder control group to examine the following questions:

1.      Is binge eating associated with higher emotional intensity, as indicated by larger N1 amplitudes in BN compared to controls?

2.      Do individuals with bulimia nervosa show poor emotion regulation skills, as indicated by larger LPP amplitude in the reappraisal condition compared to controls?

3.      Do individuals with bulimia nervosa show impaired emotional sensory gating, as indicated by lower P50 ratio compared to controls? If so, can deficits in emotional sensory gating explain the emotional difficulties seen in bulimia nervosa, including negative urgency? 

4.      To what extent do emotional intensity, emotion regulation deficits and emotional sensory gating deficits predict binge eating in bulimia nervosa?

As part of our collaboration, we’ve also been working together with our undergraduate and postgraduate students to build a database of over 1300 participants who have reported on social emotional functioning and eating disorders. We’ve written this work up in this article in the Journal of Eating Disorders.

Intolerance of Uncertainty and Eating Disorders with Dr Lot Sternheim

With Dr Lot Sternheim from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, we’ve been investigating intolerance of uncertainty in eating disorders. This is a facet of personality which develops out of beliefs about uncertainty and involves a tendency to be highly reactive when faced with uncertain situations and events.

Predicting intolerance of uncertainty in individuals with eating disorder symptoms

We gave a sample of 349 adult females with eating disorder symptoms and 214 adult females without ED symptoms the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, the NEO Five Factor Personality Inventory and the Experience in Close Relationships scale.

What did we find?

Higher insecure attachment, and lower extraversion predicted higher intolerance of uncertainty in the eating disorder group.

What does this mean?

The difficulties people with eating disorders have around tolerating uncertainty might be explained by early relationship experiences and an introverted character. We could help people to use their personality more flexibly and repair and build relationships which could help them to feel better able to tolerate uncertainty.

This work was published in the Journal of Eating Disorders and you can read the article here.

The acceptability, feasibility and possible benefits of a group-based intervention targeting intolerance of uncertainty in adolescent inpatients with anorexia nervosa

In this project, we adapted a 12 session treatment for intolerance of uncertainty and delivered it to 10 adolescents with severe forms of eating disorder receiving treatment on an inpatient unit.

What did we learn?

We found that patients rated the intervention as acceptable and there were no dropouts. There was a trend towards reductions in intolerance of uncertainty being maintained at a 3 month follow up.

What does this mean?

It’'s possible to help people with eating disorders with skills to manage their intolerance of uncertainty and this intervention could be trialled on other wards to further test its efficacy.

This research was published in Cogent Psychology and you can read it here.

Do anxiety, depression, and intolerance of uncertainty contribute to social problem solving in adult women with anorexia nervosa?

With Dr Unna Danner and Prof Annemarie van Elburg, we’ve investigated whether 30 adult women with anorexia nervosa show differences in social problem solving on an experimental task called the Means‐End Problem Solving task and whether they would report differences in their attitudes (positive, negative) toward social problem solving and their use of social problem‐solving styles (rational, impulsive–careless, avoidant) on the Social Problem‐Solving Inventory compared with 44 non‐anorexia nervosa controls.

What did we find?

Those with anorexia nervosa generated significantly less effective solutions on the Means‐End Problem Solving task. They also reported overall poorer social problem solving on the Social Problem‐Solving Inventory, showing more negative and less positive attitudes toward social problem solving, and less impulsive and more avoidant social problem‐solving styles. There was no difference in the ability to rationalise social problems. Once depression, measured using the Beck Depression Inventory and state anxiety, measured using the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory and intolerance of uncertainty, measured using the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale‐12 were included as covariates in the model, these differences were no longer significant.

What does this mean?

Comorbid depression, anxiety, and intolerance of uncertainty symptoms may contribute to social problem solving in anorexia nervosa.

These findings are reported in an article in the journal Brain and Behavior which you can read here.

We also presented this research at the Eating Disorder Research Society international conference in Chicago, 2019 as a poster presentation. You can have a look at this here.