On Weight and Waiting: Delay Discounting in Anorexia Nervosa Pretreatment and Posttreatment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) override the drive to eat, forgoing immediate rewards in favor of longer-term goals. We examined delay discounting and its neural correlates in AN before and after treatment to test a potential mechanism of illness persistence.

Methods

Inpatients with AN (n = 59) and healthy control subjects (HC, n = 39) performed a delay discounting task at two time points. A subset (n = 30 AN, n = 22 HC) participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning during the task. The task consisted of a range of monetary choices with variable delay times, yielding individual discount rates-the rate by which money loses value over time.

Results

Before treatment, the AN group showed a preference for delayed over earlier rewards (i.e

SUBMITTER: Decker JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4478277 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature