White matter alterations in anorexia nervosa: Evidence from a voxel-based meta-analysis

Manuela Barona; Melanie Brown; Christopher Clark; Sophia Frangou; Tonya White; Nadia Micali

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.002

White matter alterations in anorexia nervosa: Evidence from a voxel-based meta-analysis

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019 May:100:285-295. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.002. Epub 2019 Mar 6.

Authors

Manuela Barona¹, Melanie Brown², Christopher Clark¹, Sophia Frangou², Tonya White³, Nadia Micali⁴

Affiliations

¹ UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK.
² Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA.
³ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK; Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Electronic address: nadia.micali@unige.ch.

PMID: 30851283
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.002

Abstract

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disorder with a complex and poorly understood etiology. Recent studies have sought to investigate differences in white matter microstructure in AN, with significant results in several brain regions. A systematic literature search of Embase, PubMed and Psychinfo databases was conducted in order to identify Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) studies of patients with AN and controls. We performed a meta-analysis of studies that met our inclusion criteria (N = 13) using effect size-signed differential mapping (AES-SDM) to detect differences in Fractional Anisotropy (FA) in patients with AN (N = 227) compared to healthy controls (N = 243). The quantitative meta-analysis of DTI studies identified decreased FA in the posterior areas of the corpus callosum, the left superior longitudinal fasciculus II, and the left precentral gyrus, as well as increased FA in the right cortico-spinal projections, and lingual gyrus in AN vs. controls. Studies of WM architecture are still limited in AN; further studies with longitudinal design are needed to better understand the complexity of abnormalities, and their persistence.

Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; DTI; Diffusion imaging; Eating disorders; MRI; White matter.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Anisotropy
Anorexia Nervosa / diagnostic imaging
Anorexia Nervosa / pathology*
Brain / diagnostic imaging
Brain / pathology*
Corpus Callosum / diagnostic imaging
Corpus Callosum / pathology
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
White Matter / diagnostic imaging
White Matter / pathology*