By: Maya Listman


To witness a niece or nephew suffer with anorexia is difficult. But to see them return back to anorexia after treatment and recovery can be devastating.

Dr. Joanna Steinglass of New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) co-authored a recent study published in Nature Neuroscience to better understand why anorexia patients struggle to integrate food and nutrition into their lives even after treatment and recovery. The researchers studied the fMRI scans of healthy women’s brains and anorexic women’s brains as they make decisions about food. Steinglass and her colleagues found that those with anorexia showed increased brain activity in the area associated with habitual behaviors than health women did. “It seems that once people get sick, decision-making shifts to a different part of the brain that makes it more difficult to make a nuanced choice,” Steinglass explained. “Instead, you see the food and you automatically make a specific choice.”

The research shows that behaviors associated with anorexia are very similar to the kinds of habits that are extremely difficult to break. This new finding helps explain why anorexia is very hard to treat, as well as point to new ways to help people overcome anorexia.

Photo: Kasia Bialasiewicz
Published: November 4, 2015