Punishing food: what brain activity can tell us about the representation of food in recovered anorexia nervosa

The Perception of Time Is Underestimated in Adolescents With Anorexia Nervosa

Research has revealed reduced temporal discounting (i.e., increased capacity to delay reward) and altered interoceptive awareness in anorexia nervosa (AN). In line with the research linking temporal underestimation with a reduced tendency to devalue a reward and reduced interoceptive awareness, we tested the hypothesis that time duration might be underestimated in AN. Our findings revealed that patients with AN displayed lower timing accuracy in the form of timing underestimation compared with controls. These results were not predicted by clinical, demographic factors, attention, and working memory performance of the participants. The evidence of a temporal underestimation bias in AN might be clinically relevant to explain their abnormal motivation in pursuing a long-term restrictive diet, in line with the evidence that increasing the subjective temporal proximity of remote future goals can boost motivation and the actual behavior to reach them.

Core, social and moral disgust are bounded: A review on behavioral and neural bases of repugnance in clinical disorders

Disgust is a multifaceted experience that might affect several aspects of life. Here, we reviewed research on neurological and psychiatric disorders that are characterized by abnormal disgust processing to test the hypothesis of a shared neurocognitive architecture in the representation of three disgust domains: i) personal experience of 'core disgust'; ii) social disgust, i.e., sensitivity to others' expressions of disgust; iii) moral disgust, i.e., sensitivity to ethical violations. Our review provides some support to the shared neurocognitive hypothesis and suggests that the insula might be the "hub" structure linking the three domains of disgust sensitivity, while other brain regions may subserve specific facets of the multidimensional experience. Our review also suggests a role of serotonin core and moral disgust, supporting "neo-sentimentalist" theories of morality, which posit a causal role of affect in moral judgment.