A pilot study investigating the influence of oxytocin on attentional bias to food images in women with bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder.

Monica Leslie,Yannis Paloyelis,Janet Treasure,Jenni Leppanen

doi:10.1111/jne.12843

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious research has found that exogenous oxytocin administration has the potential to modulate attentional biases in women with anorexia nervosa. Recent work has indicated that attentional biases to food may reinforce the recurrent binge eating behaviour characterising bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. To date, however, no study has yet investigated the effect of oxytocin on attentional biases to palatable food in women with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.MethodsThe present study employed a single‐session cross‐over design to test the hypothesis that a divided dose of 64 IU of intranasal oxytocin, administered as one intranasal dose of 40 IU of oxytocin followed by a top‐up of 24 IU of oxytocin 80 minutes later, vs placebo administration administered in the same dosing schedule would reduce attentional biases towards food images in a dot probe task. We hypothesised that oxytocin administration would reduce vigilance towards food to a greater degree in women with bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder vs healthy comparison women. Twenty‐five women with bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder and 27 comparison women without history of an eating disorder were recruited to take part in the study.ResultsIn contrast to our hypothesis, there was no main effect of diagnosis on attentional bias to food (fixed effect = 5.70, P = 0.363), nor a significant interaction between diagnosis and drug condition (fixed effect =−14.80, P = 0.645). There was a main effect of drug condition, such that oxytocin increased vigilance towards food vs neutral images in the dot probe task (fixed effect = 10.42, P = 0.044). A correlation analysis revealed that this effect was moderated by attentional bias in the placebo condition, such that greater avoidance of food stimuli in the placebo condition was associated with a greater increase in vigilance induced by oxytocin.ConclusionsThe findings of the present study add to a mixed body of literature investigating the therapeutic effects of oxytocin in women. Future research would benefit from dose‐response studies investigating the optimal dose of oxytocin for modulating the attentional processing of palatable food in populations with eating disorders.

Highlights

Bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED) are DSM-5 eating disorders characterised by recurrent, loss-of-control binge eating behaviour over a period of at least three months [1]
Svaldi and colleagues [5] used a visual priming task to investigate attentional bias to food images, versus neutral images, among obese participants with and without BED. While this priming effect did not differ between the BED and non-BED groups of overweight participants, they did find that the degree of priming was positively correlated with overall eating disorder psychopathology, as measured using the Eating Disorder Examination – Questionnaire (EDE-Q) [6]
Given that recurrent binge eating behaviour was the primary trait of interest in the current study, and that populations with BN and BED are both characterised by recurrent loss-of-control binge eating behaviour, we recruited a heterogeneous sample of women who met criteria for either disorder

Summary

Introduction

Bulimia nervosa (BN) and binge eating disorder (BED) are DSM-5 eating disorders characterised by recurrent, loss-of-control binge eating behaviour over a period of at least three months [1]. Albery and colleagues [4] used a Stroop task to measure attentional bias to both foodand body-related words amongst women with BN They found that the degree of hypervigilance towards food-related words was associated with greater frequency of bingepurge behaviour. Svaldi and colleagues [5] used a visual priming task to investigate attentional bias to food images, versus neutral images, among obese participants with and without BED While this priming effect did not differ between the BED and non-BED groups of overweight participants, they did find that the degree of priming was positively correlated with overall eating disorder psychopathology, as measured using the Eating Disorder Examination – Questionnaire (EDE-Q) [6]. No study has yet investigated the effect of oxytocin on attentional biases to palatable food in women with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder

Methods

Results

Conclusion