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75 active trials for Anorexia Nervosa

Remission Factors in Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a complex and multifactorial psychiatric disease that affects mostly women and is characterized by a self-restriction of food intake leading to life-threatening consequences whose underlying mechanisms are largely unexplored. AN encompasses a constellation of risk factors including genetic, biological, neuro-psychological and social factors. Although AN has a prevalence of only 1-3% in the general population, it has the highest mortality rate amongst any psychiatric disorder. Recovery of normal feeding behaviour in patients often requires several months with a large between-patient variability and a high percentage of relapse, which can occur in 35 to 41% of the patients. There is a huge unmet need for optimal understanding of processes underlying relapse. Reward processing abnormalities represents an important hypothesis underlying AN development and perpetuation. We aim to investigate the mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance and chronicity of the disease after inpatient treatment with a longitudinal design across intensive standardized inpatient treatment. We will challenge our hypothesis through brain imaging, neuropsychological, metabolic and genetic approaches. One hundred twenty-five AN female patients admitted for intensive inpatient treatment will be recruited and evaluated: at admission, after weight recovery and at 6 months after discharge with neurocognitive tests (including the Delay Discounting Task), genetic/epigenetic examination, hormonal blood samples (at each visit and repeated sampling around a meal for a 10-patient subgroup) and brain imaging (including fMRI during a Delay Discounting Task for fifty patients). One hundred healthy controls will be also recruited and be subjected to the same study procedures.

Start: September 2020
Inhibitory Control and Eating Disorders

Executive functions are part of the high-level cognitive processes essential to the proper functioning of human cognition. They consist mainly of flexibility, updating and inhibition. Some studies have shown a correlation between executive disorders (impaired executive function) and psychiatric disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or phobias. These executive disorders are related to dysfunctions of the fronto-striatal loops. In addition, other studies have investigated the link that may exist between eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia nervosa and executive functioning. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders are eating disorders characterized by a dysfunction in food intake with restriction of food or compulsions as well as strong concerns about the body schema. Concerning the executive functioning, these studies highlight a lack of cognitive flexibility for patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa but also dysfunctions depending on the type of pathology (anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa). These studies also highlight the beneficial effects of cognitive remediation on people with eating disorders. However, the investigation of the inhibitory control has not yet been specifically studied. Moreover, since eating disorders are structurally different, a comparison between several pathologies would be interesting to consider. The aim of this study is to determine if a dysfunction of inhibitory control can be highlighted in people with eating disorders. This study would also allow further researches about cognitive remediation suitable for the specific difficulties encountered in these diseases.

Start: May 2019
Effects of Anorexia Nervosa on Peak Bone Mass

Teenage girls with anorexia nervosa (AN) are at risk for low bone density and low rates of bone accrual, raising concerns regarding acquisition of peak bone mass, an important determinant of future bone health and fracture risk. Important factors contributing to low bone density in AN include low levels of estrogen and insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). While estrogen is important for preventing bone loss, IGF-1 is important for optimizing bone formation. We have shown in a previous study that replacement of estrogen is effective in increasing bone density in teenage girls with AN; however, this increase in bone density remains lower than that seen in normal-weight controls over the same duration, and residual deficits persist. Importantly, the impact of administering replacement doses of IGF-1 with estrogen replacement has not been studied in teenagers with AN. This study will examine the impact of administering recombinant human (rh) insulin like growth factor-1 (rhIGF-1) with estrogen (to mimic pubertal levels of these hormones) versus administration of estrogen alone on bone metabolism in adolescent girls with anorexia nervosa (AN). One aim of this proposal is to investigate whether co-administration of insulin like growth factor-1 (rhIGF-1) with physiologic estradiol replacement to adolescent girls with AN will increase BMD (bone mineral density) more than estrogen monotherapy, and whether bone mass will approach that seen in healthy adolescent girls. An additional aim is to determine whether co-administration of rhIGF-1 with estradiol to mimic the normal pubertal milieu stimulates bone formation through an IGF-1 mediated anabolic effect, increases bone density to a greater extent than estrogen monotherapy, and improves bone mass accrual to approach that in healthy controls. The impact of rhIGF-1 +estradiol versus estradiol alone on bone microarchitecture will also be assessed.

Start: February 2011