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Mammillary body volume abnormalities in anorexia nervosa
Author(s) -
Khalsa Sahib S.,
Kumar Rajesh,
Patel Vandan,
Strober Michael,
Feusner Jamie D.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/eat.22573
Subject(s) - fornix , mammillary body , underweight , anorexia nervosa , magnetic resonance imaging , psychology , unconsciousness , medicine , psychiatry , radiology , neuroscience , hippocampus , obesity , eating disorders , overweight
Objective Several case reports of Wernicke's Encephalopathy in anorexia nervosa (AN) caused by thiamine deficiency have described mammillary body (MB) injury, but systematic studies are lacking. Here we evaluated whether underweight and weight‐restored individuals with AN demonstrate evidence of abnormal MB morphology, via retrospective examination of a previously collected data set. Method Using standard‐resolution T1‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging at 3 Tesla, we measured MB volume and fornix area in a cross‐sectional study of 12 underweight AN, 20 weight‐restored AN, and 30 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy comparisons. Because of the small size of these structures, a manual tracing approach was necessary to obtain accurate measurements. A blinded expert rater manually traced MB and fornix structures in each participant. Results We observed significantly smaller MB volumes in the underweight AN group. However, the weight‐restored AN group exhibited significantly larger MB volumes. The right fornix was smaller in the weight‐restored AN group only. Discussion These findings suggest the possibility that MB volume and fornix area could represent potential biomarkers of acute weight loss and restoration, respectively. Verification of this finding through prospective studies evaluating MB morphology, cognition, and thiamine levels longitudinally across individual illness trajectories might be warranted. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:920–929)