[Study of situational recognition of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders, Asperger's disorder and high functioning autism with the Metaphor and Sarcasm Scenario Test (MSST)].

The purpose of this study is to clear up the difference between Asperger's disorder (AS) and high functioning autism (HFA) with a newly developed test, the metaphor and sarcasm scenario test (MSST) can be used to distinguish pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (AD/HD). So 66 AS children, 20 HFA children and 37 AD/HD children were selected, compared the profiles of score on the MSST. The results showed that the inability to understand sarcastic situation was specific to group with AS, both group with HFA and AD/HD were differ little to understand between metaphor and sarcasm. In this study suggest differences in situational recognition among the PDD subtypes, the clinical symptoms of PDD reflects characteristics of AS.

A ghrelin gene variant may predict crossover rate from restricting-type anorexia nervosa to other phenotypes of eating disorders: a retrospective survival analysis.

BACKGROUND: Patients with anorexia nervosa restricting type (AN-R) often develop bulimic symptoms and crossover to AN-binge eating/purging type (AN-BP), or to bulimia nervosa (BN). We have reported earlier that genetic variants of an orexigenic peptide ghrelin are associated with BN. Here, the relationship between a ghrelin gene variant and the rate of change from AN-R to other phenotypes of eating disorders (EDs) was investigated. METHODS: Participants were 165 patients with ED, initially diagnosed as AN-R. The dates of their AN-R onset and changes in diagnosis to other subtypes of ED were investigated retrospectively. Ghrelin gene 3056 T-->C SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) was genotyped. Probability and hazard ratios were analyzed using life table analysis and Cox's proportional hazard regression model, in which the starting point was the time of AN-R onset and the outcome events were the time of (i) onset of binge eating, that is, when patients changed to binge eating AN and BN and (ii) recovery of normal weight, that is, when patients changed to BN or remission. RESULTS: Patients with the TT genotype at 3056 T-->C had a higher probability and hazard ratio for recovery of normal weight. The ghrelin SNP was not related with the onset of binge eating. CONCLUSION: The 3056 T-->C SNP of the ghrelin gene is related to the probability and the rate of recovery of normal body weight from restricting-type AN.

Possible role of preproghrelin gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to bulimia nervosa.

Previous investigations have suggested that ghrelin, an endogenous orexigenic peptide, is involved in the pathology of eating disorders. We conducted a study to determine whether any preproghrelin gene polymorphisms are associated with eating disorders. Three hundred thirty-six eating disorder patients, including 131 anorexia nervosa (AN)-restricting types (AN-R), 97 AN-binge eating/purging types (AN-BP) and 108 bulimia nervosa (BN)-purging types (BN-P), and 300 healthy control subjects participated in the study. Genotyping was performed to determine the polymorphisms present, and with this information, linkage disequilibrium (LD) between the markers was analyzed and the distributions of the genotypes, the allele frequencies, and the haplotype frequencies were compared between the groups. The Leu72Met (408 C > A) (rs696217) polymorphism in exon 2 and the 3056 T > C (rs2075356) polymorphism in intron 2 were in LD (D' = 0.902, r2 = 0.454). Both polymorphisms were significantly associated with BN-P (allele-wise: P = 0.0410, odds ratio (OR) = 1.48; P = 0.0035, OR = 1.63, for Leu72Met and 3056 T > C, respectively). In addition, we observed a significant increase in the frequency of the haplotype Met72-3056C in BN-P patients (P = 0.0059, OR = 1.71). Our findings suggest that the Leu72Met (408 C > A) and the 3056 T > C polymorphisms of the preproghrelin gene are associated with susceptibility to BN-P.