Temporal attentional bias to food stimuli in adolescent anorexia nervosa - an ERP study

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with substantial psychological and physical impairment and low recovery rates. A deeper understanding of its underlying mechanisms is therefore crucial. Cognitive models of eating disorders emphasize the role of attentional biases in the processing of food stimuli. However, only a few studies to date have examined the temporal dynamics of food-related attentional bias in adolescents with AN.

The present study combined the high temporal resolution of event-related potentials with the behavioral measure of the attentional blink in a rapid serial visual presentation task in order to disentangle the temporal processing stages that underlie food-related attentional biases in female adolescents with AN (n = 33) compared to age-matched healthy controls (n = 36).

Behavioral results revealed an increased attentional engagement with food in AN, but no impairment in attentional disengagement. Additionally, high-calorie food distractors elicited reduced early electrocortical processing followed by enhanced later processing in AN. These AN-specific attentional biases were no longer evident for target processing.

The findings suggest that attention allocation to food in AN is a temporally dynamic process rather than a unitary mechanism. They further suggest that these biases are not entirely autonomous but rather depend on the availability of attentional resources.