Anorexia Nervosa and Brain

¶ … neural activations that are related to perceived body form, anxiousness and the outcomes that follow the same when it comes to teenage patients that have anorexia nervosa. Rather than just regurgitate and restate what is already stated in the article, there will instead be a critical analysis and review of what is being said, how valid it seems to be and what questions might be important to answer next.

While synthesizing the conception and treatment of mental health disorders can be hard to pull off, it is something that needs to be done given the implications and stakes involved. The article starts off by stating some of the more widely known issues and factors surrounding anorexia nervosa, inclusive of the fact that it is a mindset whereby the suffering patient feels that they are fat and overweight even if they are the picture of health or even too skinny as it is.

There is nothing profound about saying that but it is important to lay that groundwork for anyone that is not familiar with how anorexia manifests and presents. What is much more important to focus on, however, comes next in the article and that would be how the brain fires (or misfires) in a patient that has an eating disorder.

Since there are some apparent gaps in knowledge and the settled science of what anorexia does in a patient, this report is wise to explore precisely what happens or happens wrong when it comes to neural activations. The sample size for this study is not terribly high. Indeed, roughly three and a half dozen patients is not a huge patient pool but perhaps going too large with the pool would be problematic. Even the study's authors say as such near the end of the report.

Something else that is worthy of note is that all of the participants were women. However, that does make a bit of sense given that men are not subject to the body image war that women are often pressed into, whether it be peer pressure or social norms in general (Xu et al., 2017). It is intriguing that the study focuses less on the disorder itself and instead focuses on how the brain works and fires when it comes to certain statements and ideas.

As shown in section 2.3, there are statements posed about one's self, a secondary person and so forth. Since anorexia is very much connected to perceptions of self as compared to how they perceive others and their input or presence, that is really a novel idea. The brain's firing and activity was watched using a functional MRI. As one might expect, the brain's reactions to the statements were noticeably different with the anorexia patients as compared to people that are considered healthy.

This obviously and inextricably proves, it would seem, that people with anorexia are indeed dealing with a brain that behaves and acts differently than it should be. Thus, it is no surprise that people with anorexia struggle greatly and it is not just a matter of willpower. It is more a matter of their brain not functioning like it could or should. The study is also prescient to look at people with anorexia that have recovered or even relapsed.

This is good to look at because people who have beat back anorexia should be looked at to see if their brain is still functioning the same way or if the therapy and/or drugs they are using make some sort of difference (Xu et.