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The role of the right parietal lobe in anorexia nervosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2009

D. Nico ,
E. Daprati ,
N. Nighoghossian ,
E. Carrier ,
J.-R. Duhamel  and
A. Sirigu
D. Nico
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
E. Daprati
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France Dipartimento di Neuroscienze and Centro di Biomedicina Spaziale, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy Dipartimento di Fisiologia Neuromotoria, IRCCS Fondazione SantaLucia, Rome, Italy
N. Nighoghossian
Affiliation:
Hôpital Neurologique Pierre Wertheimer, Lyon, France
E. Carrier
Affiliation:
Clinique Saint Vincent de Paul, Lyon, France
J.-R. Duhamel
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
A. Sirigu*
Affiliation:
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Bron, France
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr A. Sirigu, Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, 67, Blv Pinel, 69675Bron, France. (Email: sirigu@isc.cnrs.fr)
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Abstract

Background

Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) overestimate their size despite being severely underweight. Whether this misperception echoes an underlying emotional disturbance or also reflects a genuine body-representation deficit is debatable. Current measures inquire directly about subjective perception of body image, thus distinguishing poorly between top-down effects of emotions/attitudes towards the body and disturbances due to proprioceptive disorders/distorted body schema. Disorders of body representation also emerge following damage to the right parietal lobe. The possibility that parietal dysfunction might contribute to AN is suspected, based on the demonstrated association of spatial impairments, comparable to those found after parietal lesion, with this syndrome.

Method

We used a behavioral task to compare body knowledge in severe anorexics (n=8), healthy volunteers (n=11) and stroke patients with focal damage to the left/right parietal lobe (n=4). We applied a psychophysical procedure based on the perception, in the dark, of an approaching visual stimulus that was turned off before reaching the observer. Participants had to predict whether the stimulus would have hit/missed their body, had it continued its linear motion.

Results

Healthy volunteers and left parietal patients estimated body boundaries very close to the real ones. Conversely, anorexics and right parietal patients underestimated eccentricity of their left body boundary.

Conclusions

These findings are in line with the role the parietal cortex plays in developing and maintaining body representation, and support the possibility for a neuropsychological component in the pathogenesis of anorexia, offering alternative approaches to treatment of the disorder.

Keywords

Anorexia nervosabasal gangliabody representationparietal lobespatial hemineglect
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 9 , September 2010 , pp. 1531 - 1539
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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