The handbook provides readers with a useful and accessible reference that summarizes and highlights critical findings in eating disorders to provide foundational knowledge of biological and brain function in eating disorders, how this relates to symptom expression and maintenance, and how this can inform future research and treatment development efforts needed to improve efficacy.
Eating disorders are associated with dangerous and costly medical morbidity, high rates of comorbid psychopathology, significant psychosocial impairment, substantial economic burden, and the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. These serious disorders have a long history in psychological research, yet advances in neurobiology are relatively new.
The Handbook of the Neurobiology of Eating Disorders provides readers with a useful and accessible reference that summarizes and highlights critical findings in eating disorders to provide foundational knowledge of biological and brain function in eating disorders, how this relates to symptom expression and maintenance, and how this can inform future research and treatment development efforts needed to improve efficacy. The book aims not only to assemble scientific information from a range of areas of neurobiology of eating disorders but also to promote discourse and encourage integration of perspectives. By highlighting the controversies in the field, the book clarifies the distinctions between what is known from the data and what is not yet known, to drive further discovery toward the common goal of improving understanding and treatment of eating disorders.
Christina E. Wierenga, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego and a Fellow of Division 40 (Neuropsychology) of the American Psychological Association. Her programmatic research investigates cognitive, behavioral, and brain mechanisms underlying symptom expression in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa to guide development of neurobiologically informed treatments, utilizing neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and computational neuroscience approaches. As the Director of Research and a clinical psychologist in the UCSD Health Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research, she has been working with adolescents and adults with eating disorders for more than a decade. She also teaches and supervises graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Joanna E. Steinglass, MD is a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is the Director of Research for the Eating
Disorders Research Clinic and a Training Director for the research fellowship. Her interdisciplinary research investigates anorexia nervosa through study of the behavioral and neural mechanisms of illness, using tools from cognitive and computational neuroscience. She applies these insights to the development of behavioral, neuromodulatory, and pharmacological interventions.
