Verbal memory following weight gain in adult patients with anorexia nervosa: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) show a moderate deficit in overall neuropsychological functioning. Since previous studies on memory performance mainly employed cross-sectional designs, the present study aims to investigate changes in verbal memory following weight-gain. Methods: Verbal memory was assessed with the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R; 'logical memory'-story-recall-subtest) and the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II; 'verbal learning'). Included were 31 female patients with AN (18 restricting-, 13 purging-subtype; average disease duration: 5.1 years; average baseline BMI: 14.4 kg/m 2 ) and 24 medication-free normal-weight healthy women adjusted for age at baseline (T0). In a posttreatment assessment of approx. 6 weeks with weight increase (T1), 18 patients with AN and 20 healthy women were assessed again. Group differences in verbal memory (i.e., WMS-R, CVLT-II) were assessed for the baseline comparisons with a multivariate ANOVA and longitudinal data were analysed with repeated measures (RM) ANOVAs.Results: At baseline, patients with AN as compared to healthy women displayed deficits in logical memory. In the follow-up assessment, patients with AN improved their logical memory significantly compared to healthy controls (p < 0.006). Furthermore, groups did not differ in verbal learning neither before nor after inpatient treatment.Conclusions: Enhanced logical memory in patients with AN following weight-gain is probably due to the impaired memory as compared to healthy controls at T0. A survivorship bias could explain the improved memory Abbreviations: AN, anorexia nervosa; AN-COMP, patients with anorexia nervosa who underwent T0 as well as T1; AN-DROP, patients with anorexia nervosa who lost follow-up; BMI, body mass index;

Autobiographical memory following weight gain in adult patients with Anorexia Nervosa: A longitudinal study

“…In adolescent patients (i.e., not adult study samples) with AN, some domains of cognitive functioning seem to improve with weight gain (Hatch, et al., 2010; Hemmingsen et al., 2021; Lozano‐Serra et al., 2014). It was also shown that in adult female patients, verbal memory was intact and logical memory improved (Terhoeven, et al., 2023). Similarly, our “trend” p ‐values in the longitudinal explorative analyses showing improvement in the AMT might also suggest that autobiographical memories associated with neutral or depression‐related experiences become more specific.…”

Back to the future: Progressing memory research in eating disorders

“…Furthermore, one study found that biased episodic memory for negatively valenced information may help explain emotion regulation difficulties in AN (Manuel & Wade, 2013), suggesting that memory biases may underlie key affect regulation deficits in EDs. However, despite intriguing recent findings, tests of general episodic memory deficits have led to highly inconsistent results overall (Eneva et al, 2017; Keeler et al, 2022a; Stedal et al, 2021; Terhoeven et al, 2017; Terhoeven, Faschingbauer, et al, 2023; Weider et al, 2016).…”

An investigation of the specificity and vividness of autobiographical memories and future events produced in response to disgust-related cues among individuals with eating disorders

“…Most of the evidence points to people with AN producing fewer speci c AMs towards general (e.g., sorry, guilty, hopeless, worse, angry, hurt, lonely) or disorder-relevant cues (e.g., hunger, fat, judgement, weight, stigma. failure) than controls [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Episodic future thinking (EFT) is associated with the ability to recall speci c memories in line with the "constructive episodic simulation hypothesis", which posits that details from past events are exibly recombined to simulate novel future events [19].…”