22 June 2022: Identifying and targeting cognitive control dysfunction in bulimia nervosa

Laura Berner
Department of Psychiatry
Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Every day, our brains bring together information from our bodies and environments to control our eating behavior. Extremes in the control of eating behavior, as well as other non-food-related behaviors, characterize individuals with bulimia nervosa. I will present research that uses neuroimaging and well-established and novel paradigms to investigate how various aspects of the control process go awry in bulimia nervosa, and how these disturbances may drive binge eating and purging. Further, I will discuss recent and ongoing and research that leverages computational modeling to test whether problems flexibly adjusting control-related strategies and difficulty tracking one’s control over others people’s behavior may maintain bulimic symptoms. Finally, I will review how disruptions in control and its underlying circuitry may help us develop new treatments.

View a recording of this session here.