The influence of gender and body dissatisfaction on body-related attentional bias: An eye-tracking and virtual reality study.

OBJECTIVE: In the attentional bias (AB) phenomenon, eating disorder (ED) patients show a tendency to pay more attention to self-attributed unattractive body parts than to other body parts. However, little research has focused on gender differences in body-related attention, controlling for body dissatisfaction (BD). This study aimed to assess gender differences in AB toward specific weight- or nonweight-related body parts using a virtual reality (VR)-based embodiment technique and an eye-tracking AB assessment. METHOD: Forty-five women (23 with high BD and 22 with low BD) and 40 men (20 with high BD and 20 with low BD) were subsequently embodied in three virtual avatars, the first based on the participant's actual measurements, the second being larger than the participant, and the third being the same as the first avatar. The number of fixations and complete fixation time on weight-related areas of interest (W-AOIs) and nonweight-related areas of interest (NW-AOIs) were recorded for the three assessment time/avatars. RESULTS: The results showed a statistically significant interaction between gender and time for total fixation time and number of fixations (p < .05). BD levels did not significantly affect the results. Overall, women paid more attention to the W-AOIs than men, who in turn paid more attention to the NW-AOIs. Furthermore, preliminary evidence was found for an AB toward muscular-related AOIs among men. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides new information about gender differences and BD in gaze pattern behaviors. Future psychological ED assessments and treatments could take advantage of the possibilities of VR while real-time AB is objectively measured.

Performance of Coronary Angiography in the Detection of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients with Systolic Left Ventricular Dysfunction and No Prior Ischemic Heart Disease.

The diagnosis of ischemic cardiomyopathy is not well established. Our objective is to determine predictive variables of coronary disease in unselected patients with ventricular dysfunction. This study is a retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients with left ventricular dysfunction and no known history of ischemic heart disease. We analyse the demographic variables, clinical data, electrocardiogram, and echocardiogram that are associated with the presence of coronary stenosis on coronary angiography. A total of 536 patients with left ventricular dysfunction were studied, with 135 (25.2%) of them having significant coronary lesions. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, age ≤ 50 years, female gender, and the presence of atrial fibrillation on the electrocardiogram (ECG) were predictors of the absence of coronary lesions. Diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, the existence of Q waves in the ECG, and segmental alterations in contractility in the echocardiogram were predictors of coronary heart disease (C-Statistics 0.771, 95% CI 0.727 to 0.814). The information obtained from the clinical history, the ECG, and the echocardiogram of patients with ventricular dysfunction allows us to select subjects in whom coronary angiography has shown poor performance in diagnosing coronary disease.