State or trait: the neurobiology of anorexia nervosa — contributions of a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

BACKGROUND: The understanding of the cerebral neurobiology of anorexia nervosa (AN) with respect to state- versus trait-related abnormalities is limited. There is evidence of restitution of structural brain alterations with clinical remission. However, with regard to functional brain abnormalities, this issue has not yet been clarified. METHODS: We compared women with AN (n = 31), well-recovered female participants (REC) (n = 18) and non-patients (NP) (n = 27) cross-sectionally. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed to compare neural responses to food versus non-food images. Additionally, affective ratings were assessed. RESULTS: Functional responses and affective ratings did not differ between REC and NP, even when applying lenient thresholds for the comparison of neural responses. Comparing REC and AN, the latter showed lower valence and higher arousal ratings for food stimuli, and neural responses differed with lenient thresholds in an occipital region. CONCLUSIONS: The data are in line with some previous findings and suggest restitution of cerebral function with clinical recovery. Furthermore, affective ratings did not differ from NP. These results need to be verified in intra-individual longitudinal studies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40337-022-00598-7.