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An examination of decision making in bulimia nervosa
Pei-Chi Liao1, Rudolf Uher, Natalia Lawrence
1Section of Eating Disorders, Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
Background:
Patients with eating disorders favor immediate gratification and ignore long-term negative consequences. This study investigated decision making in bulimia nervosa using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and skin conductance responses (SCR).
Method:
A total of 26 bulimia nervosa patients and 51 healthy controls took part in this study; 29 patients with anorexia nervosa were included for comparison.
Results:
Bulimia nervosa patients performed poorly in the IGT, but showed no decrease in anticipatory SCR, whereas a markedly diminished anticipatory SCR was seen in the anorexia nervosa group.
Conclusions:
This finding does not support the somatic marker hypothesis. Impaired decision making was associated with obsessive-compulsive traits.
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