Active clinical trials for "Binge-Eating Disorder"

The study will examine the neural and behavioral correlates of emotion regulation in adolescents engaging in binge eating and/or purging and healthy adolescents. Furthermore, it will look at the influence of executive function on emotion regulation in this population. This study will allow us to gain further understanding of the neural basis of emotion regulation in this age group. Moreover, this study supports the need to develop new treatment approaches based on a better understanding of the brain processes associated with eating disorders.

The Binge Eating Genetics Initiative (BEGIN) is an observational study where individuals with binge-eating disorder (BED) or bulimia nervosa (BN) complete assessments about eating disorder history, current disordered eating behavior, and mood. Participants also provide active data on binge eating, purging, nutrition, and cognitions using Recovery Record on the Apple Watch. Passive sensor data are collected via native applications over a 30-day period in 1000 individuals with BED or BN. Investigators will combine longitudinal passive (Apple Watch) and active (Recovery Record) data to predict when patients are at high risk of binge eating or purging. Results will enable the deployment of real-time, in-the-moment, personalized signaling of impending binge or purge episodes that will interrupt automatic behaviors and empower patients to exert control over binge eating and purging by engaging in therapeutic alternatives.

This study involves a 2.5 and 5 year follow-up interview for individuals who participated in the initial family study of binge eating disorder. The study includes individuals with and without eating disorder as well as their first degree relatives. As part of the study, participants will be interviewed about their current psychiatric and medical symptoms, their blood pressure will be measured, and laboratory specimens will be obtained.

People who suffer from binge eating disorder experience recurrent episodes of binge eating.During these episodes, they consume an unusually large amount of food in a short amount of time and experience loss of control over eating. However, why such binge eating episodes occur is still largely unknown. This makes it difficult to develop targeted treatments. In this project, the experimenters are investigating the brain mechanisms that give rise to the disorder. They hypothesize that the binge eating episodes are due to an increased variability in reward processing, which they will assess repeatedly over days. They will test this hypothesis using mathematical models based on behavioural and MRI measurements that are related to the processing of rewards.

The overarching intention of the Eating Disorder Genetics Initiative (EDGI) is to lay the foundation for all future genomic discovery in eating disorders--anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge-eating disorder (BED)--by exploring both genetic and behavioral factors. To do this, information will be collected from 4000 people who have provided DNA samples for the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI) and the same information and DNA will be collected from an additional 16,000 people. The goal is to better understand eating disorders and how they relate to each other so that better treatments can be developed.

Adoption, twin and family studies have reported that obesity has a strong heritable component and in particular, it has been suggested that BMI in adults is due to genetic influence rather than shared family environment. Binge eating in obese patients was described. Therefore, it has been proposed that binge eating disorder (BED) may contribute to obesity in some individuals. Pharmacological studies reported that topiramate plays an important role in the treatment of binge eating disorder. It has been observed improvement of co-occurring binge eating disorder in patients receiving topiramate for treatment of mood disorders. In addition, topiramate was associated with anorexia and weight loss in clinical trials with epilepsy patients. Also, topiramate has been demonstrated efficacy in pilot and controlled studies for binge eating disorder (BED) associated with obesity. Genetic studies will be important to elucidate the mechanism by which putative susceptibility variation in candidate genes influences in pharmacological improvement of binge eating disorder in obese patients treated with topiramate. Connecting drug response with relevant functional DNA variants and differences in brain regions represents the ultimate goal for pharmacogenetic research playing an important role in advancing this understanding. The use of brain imaging combined with genetics can aid in understanding the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease. Additionally, brain imaging has the ability to bridge between preclinical research and human pharmacological studies. This will be a naturalistic clinical study designed to analyze the effect of genetic variants and neurofunctional brain areas associated with food craving in patients with obesity and binge eating disorder responders to topiramate. Hypothesis: The use of topiramate in obese subjects with binge eating disorder is associated with a differential gene variants and different activation brain areas in subjects that showed a reduction of food craving and weight lost.