Application of neuromodulation therapy on eating disorder / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

With the development of society, eating disorders(EDs) have attracted people's attention because of their chronicity, high fatality rate and heavy social burden. However, the current treatment mainly includes psychotherapy and drug therapy, but the therapeutic effect is not satisfactory. Studies suggest that patients with EDs have brain abnormalities related to the prefrontal cortex. In recent years, the neuromodulation therapies, especially the non-invasive neuromodulation therapies, have become a research hotspot because of their few side effects and easy to use. At present, they have been used in mental disorders such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance addiction and so on. A small number of studies on EDs have also been carried out. This paper reviews the related studies on anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, and introduces the working principles of deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and direct current stimulation and their efficacy in the treatment of EDs. Previous studies have shown that neuromodulation therapies are effective in the treatment of EDs. However, the existing research results are not exactly same, and the best parameters need to be clarified. In the future study, it is necessary to integrate cognitive, neuroimaging and biomarker data to identify different endophenotypes in EDs, so as to help clarify the disease mechanism, help patients with EDs to formulate individual treatment plans, improve clinical symptoms, and put forward suggestions and prospects for future research and application.