Behavioural Ratings

Hypothesis:

Reward processing has been found to be disrupted in anorexia nervosa (AN), but whether symptom severity impairs learning of reward associations remains unclear. In this study, we examined whether psychopathology, indexed by eating disorder severity (EDE-Q), anxiety (STAI), mood disturbance (POMS), depression/anxiety/stress symptoms (DASS), and reward sensitivity (BAS) are associated with degree of appetitive conditioning. We predicted that those with greater symptom severity would have with weaker appetitive learning.

Materials and Methods:

Participants included a preliminary sample of individuals with AN (n = 14), weight-restored AN (WR; n = 21), and healthy controls (HC; n = 20). Participants completed an fMRI-based appetitive conditioning task during which the CS+ (a neutral shape) was paired with an appetitive US (the sound of baby laughter), while the CS− (same shape, different colour) was not. Participants rated valence of each CS before and after the conditioning task. We fit linear mixed models across all participants (AN, WRAN, and HC) to examine whether continuous clinical measures (same model) were associated with changes in CS+ relative to CS− valence.

Results and Conclusion:

None of the clinical variables were significantly associated with reward learning. BAS showed a nominal association with reward learning (F(13,38) = 2.06, uncorrected p=.042), but this effect did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Although data collection is ongoing, these findings thus far suggest that appetitive conditioning processes may operate independently of broad psychopathology measures.

To be updated shortly..