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Updated: May 18, 2026

A Computer-Based Platform for Aiding Clinicians in Eating Disorder Analysis and Diagnosis
Published on: May 10, 2022
Set-shifting among adolescents with bulimic spectrum eating disorders
Alison M Darcy1, Kathleen Kara Fitzpatrick, Danielle Colborn
1Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305, USA. adarcy@stanford.edu
Objective:
Set-shifting difficulties are observed among adults with bulimia nervosa (BN). This study aimed to assess whether adolescents with BN and BN spectrum eating disorders exhibit set-shifting problems relative to healthy controls.
Methods:
Neurocognitive data from 23 adolescents with BN were compared with those from 31 adolescents with BN-type eating disorder not otherwise specified and 22 healthy controls on various measures of set-shifting (Trail Making Task [shift task], Color-Word Interference, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Brixton Spatial Anticipation Task).
Results:
No significant differences in set-shifting tasks were found among groups (p >.35), and effect sizes were small (Cohen f < 0.17).
Conclusions:
Cognitive inflexibility may develop over time because of the eating disorder, although it is possible that there is a subset of individuals in whom early neurocognitive difficulty may result in a longer illness trajectory. Future research should investigate the existence of neurocognitive taxons in larger samples and use longitudinal designs to fully explore biomarkers and illness effects.
Trial Registration:
clinicaltrials.gov NCT00879151.
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