Am J Psychiatry 1990; 147:309-312
Copyright © 1990 by American Psychiatric Association
Greater left cerebral hemispheric metabolism in bulimia assessed by positron emission tomography
JC Wu, J Hagman, MS Buchsbaum, B Blinder, M Derrfler, WY Tai, E Hazlett and N Sicotte
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California, Irvine 92717.
Eight women with bulimia and eight age- and sex-matched normal control
subjects were studied with positron emission tomography using [18F]-
fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) as a tracer of brain metabolic rate. Subjects
performed a visual vigilance task during FDG uptake. In control subjects,
the metabolic rate was higher in the right hemisphere than in the left, but
patients with bulimia did not have this normal asymmetry. Lower metabolic
rates in the basal ganglia, found in studies of depressed subjects, and
higher rates in the basal ganglia, reported in a study of anorexia nervosa,
were not found. This is consistent with the suggestion that bulimia is a
diagnostic grouping distinct from these disorders.
