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Aims Alexithymia is a personality trait that consists of difficulty in identifying and acknowledging one's own and others' feelings. Recent studies reported that alexithymia is present in both anorexia ( AN) and bulimia nervosa ( BN). Brain morphological studies on healthy subjects showed that alexithymia correlates with several brain regions involved in emotions processing. The aim of this study was to investigate the anatomical correlates of alexithymia in AN and BN. Methods We performed a voxel-based morphometry study on 21 patients with AN and 18 with BN. Seventeen healthy subjects were used as a control group. Alexithymia, depression and anxiety were assessed with self-administered questionnaires and correlated to gray matter ( GM) density in each group. Results In BN, alexithymia was correlated with the GM of the parietal lobe, in particular of the right angular gyrus. The correlation was predominantly linked with Difficulty Describing Feelings. In AN, we did not find correlations between GM and alexithymia. Conclusions In BN, our results support the hypothesis that this trait may represent a relevant pathogenic or maintenance factor that contributes to relational difficulties, present in this pathology. In AN, the lack of correlation between GM volume and alexithymia may be influenced by atrophy in several brain regions that in turn can be, as previously reported, a consequence of caloric restriction. Also, the nature of alexithymia may be different from that of BN and controls and this trait could be secondary to a psychopathologic process specific to AN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinocerebellar ataxias type 2 (SCA2) is a rare genetic disorder characterised by the degeneration of the Cerebellum, its connections and many Brainstem areas. A voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis was performed on 12 genetically determined SCA2 patients and 31 controls, normalising the brains with two different atlases: one was created in-house with DARTEL (a diffeomorphic registration method) and the other was SUIT (an exclusive Cerebellum atlas). We administered two versions of a popular executive/planning functions test: the Tower of London, in the traditional and in a computerised version that does not require the use of hands, to correlate the regional atrophy with the tests' performances and to discover the different associations of Cerebellum's areas to cognitive dysfunctions. SCA2 showed a diffuse infratentorial atrophy with the whole Cerebellum and Brainstem affected, the overall patterns were highly overlapping between atlases with some minor differences. The DARTEL VBM also allowed detecting two sovratentorial clusters of atrophy, one in the left Inferior Parietal Lobule and the other in the Corticospinal Tracts. Additional analyses revealed a partial involvement of many White Matter tracts and of the Thalamus in the pathology. The classical Tower of London version correlated maximally with the right Lobule IV-V, when the computerised version correlated with the right Crus 1. The correlations of different versions of the test suggested a dissociation between the dysfunctions in SCA2: the Posterior Cerebellum was linked to the executive dysfunction while the Anterior Cerebellum was linked to the coordinative dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent studies focussing on neuroimaging features of eating disorders have observed that anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by significant grey matter (GM) atrophy in many brain regions, especially in the cerebellum and anterior cingulate cortex. To date, no studies have found GM atrophy in bulimia nervosa (BN) or have directly compared patients with AN and BN. We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to characterize brain abnormalities in AN and BN patients, comparing them with each other and with a control group, and correlating brain volume with clinical features. We recruited 17 AN, 13 BN and 14 healthy controls. All subjects underwent high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a T1-weighted 3D image. VBM analysis was carried out with the FSL-VBM 4.1 tool. We found no global atrophy, but regional GM reduction in AN with respect to controls and BN in the cerebellum, fusiform area, supplementary motor area, and occipital cortex, and in the caudate in BN compared to AN and controls. Both groups of patients had a volumetric increase bilaterally in somatosensory regions with respect to controls, in areas that are typically involved in the sensory-motor integration of body stimuli and in mental representation of the body image. Our VBM study documented, for the first time in BN patients, the presence of volumetric alterations and replicated previous findings in AN patients. We evidenced morphological differences between AN and BN, demonstrating in the latter atrophy of the caudate nucleus, a region involved in reward mechanisms and processes of self-regulation, perhaps involved in the genesis of the binge-eating behaviors of this disorder. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]