Active clinical trials for "Feeding and Eating Disorders"

Inclusion Criteria: aged 21 and older, BMI>=25, and presence of recurrent binge eating on the MOVE! Survey. Exclusion Criteria: more than 4 MOVE! sessions in the prior year; active psychosis or suicidal ideation; medical or psychiatric illness, or cognitive deficits that interfere with providing consent or completing assessments, and; pregnancy or lactation. Participants will be recruited from the VA's MOVE! Program at VA Connecticut Healthcare System (both Newington and West Haven campuses). Those participants who meet eligibility and are interested in the study will meet with a research associate who will obtain written consent. A baseline appointment will be made where the participant will complete written assessments, anthropometric measures (weight, height, blood pressure etc.), along with a blood draw. Participants will then be randomized, by luck of a draw, to either MOVE! or MOVE!+clinician-led CBT treatment. For those randomized to the MOVE! condition, participants will continue in the MOVE! program by meeting with the multidisciplinary team in a group setting once a week for 60 minutes, for 16 weeks. The group sessions are lead by a dietician, health psychologist, and physical therapist. For those randomized to the MOVE!+CBT treatments, participants will continue in the MOVE! program as described above, but will also partake in up to 10 individualized sessions over a 3-month period. Participants will be given a treatment manual to read at home, ask to complete daily food logs and work with the study therapist to create goals and complete homework that is geared at examining and changing how participant think about binge eating and how that thinking affects behavior. Lastly, a walking program will also be incorporated into the treatment. For both treatment arms, 3 months from treatment starting, then again at 9 months and 15 months, participants will be asked to complete post and follow up assessments, much like the baseline.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is the most widespread food behavior disorder, with prevalence three times higher than anorexia. Its pathophysiology remains poorly understood and the investigators have few therapeutic options. Following a review of the literature, the investigators hypothesize that luminotherapy could be an innovative treatment of BED by its favorable effect on triggers of hyperphagic access, circadian disturbances, attention and impulsivity. The study is prospective, interventional, randomized, double-blind, monocentric (HCL). 52 patients with BED will be randomized to an active arm with intensive luminotherapy (1 daily 30 min, 10,000 lux in the morning) versus a placebo arm (<500 lux). Treatment will be delver every day during 30 days. Assessments will take place on D0, D30 and D60. The main objective is to compare the evolution of the number of hyperphagic access before and after treatment between the two groups. Secondary objectives are to compare characteristics of hyperphagic access, bodily concerns, food dependence and impulsivity, mood, anxiety, cognitive and attentional profiles (STROOP, Go / No Go, SST, BART, Prospective Time Estimation Task, Switching Task), liking / wanted for different food categories and carbohydrate metabolism (CRP, glucose, insulinemia, insulin resistance, profile of lipid abnormalities, 25-OH vitamin D3).

The COVID-19 pandemic has had detrimental effects on mental health. Individuals with eating disorders (EDs) are no exception, exhibiting increased symptoms and exacerbated feelings of isolation and anxiety. Across Canada, in-person outpatient services have been quickly replaced with virtual care, yet practitioners and patients have noted substantial challenges in adapting ED-related care virtually. Given the success of our previous research on Family-Based Treatment (FBT) for EDs, as well as the rapid transition to virtual care during COVID-19, there is an urgent need to adapt FBT to virtual formats and adopt it in the ED network. Using a multi-site case study with a mixed method pre/post design, this study aims to examine the implementation of virtual FBT (vFBT) as well as its impact within six ED programs in Ontario, building on the investigator's previous work, and further developing capacity in the system. The investigator will develop implementation teams at each site and provide a virtual training workshop on vFBT, with ongoing consultation during initial implementation. The investigator proposes to examine implementation success by studying fidelity to vFBT, as well as team and patient/family experience with virtual care, and patient outcomes. These findings for virtual care will not only be important in the COVID-19 context but are also vital in the North, where access to specialized services is extremely limited.

In the current study, the investigators will revise our existing 10-session group RRT treatment manual to specifically address the challenges in building social support and enhancing both momentary and sustained reward during the COVID-19 pandemic (Preliminary Aim 1). In months 2-18, the investigators will conduct a small pilot RCT that will randomize individuals to receive either 10-sessions of RRT (n=30) or supportive therapy (n=30), both delivered as group-treatments via videoconferencing software. The specific aims of the current study are to confirm the feasibility and acceptability of RRT for EDs (Primary Aim 1), evaluate the ability of RRT to engage critical targets including reward to day-to-day life activities, reward to palatable foods, social isolation, and loneliness (Primary Aim 2), and provide preliminary estimates of efficacy in reducing ED symptoms at both post-treatment and a 3-month follow-up (Primary Aim 3). the investigators will also evaluate the impact of RRT on secondary outcome variables including depression, substance use, and quality of life (Secondary Aim 1).

Craving is defined as an irrepressible urge to consume certain products and represents one of the key factors in severe substance use disorders, as illustrated by its recent inclusion as a diagnostic criterion in the most recent fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5). However, the pathophysiological models of craving remain debated. The "metacognitive hub model", a conceptual, experimental and clinical approach to craving, proposes that craving should be considered as the embedded consequence of the interaction between three components (the reflexive, automatic and interoceptive systems), each of which has an implicit and explicit element. This model links the three components by suggesting that metacognitive abilities, the ability to understand one's own cognitive functioning, may be a skill of individuals that allows them to make the three sub-components explicit or not. To date, the conception of eating disorders is increasingly similar to that of addictive disorders. Indeed, there is growing evidence that the symptomatology of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder can be considered in part as an "food addiction" and would fit the diagnostic criteria of an addictive disorder. Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder (DSM 5) characterized by a cycle of binge eating and compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting that tend to negate or compensate for the effects of the binge eating. Binge eating disorder (DSM 5) is characterized by a cycle of binge eating, but without the compensatory behaviors seen in bulimia nervosa. In addition, there are common neurological aspects as well as similar cognitions between these eating disorders and addictive disorders. Given the importance of craving in addictive pathology, it seems essential to address this issue in bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. The cognitive difficulties of patients with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, which are close to the difficulties observed in patients with addictive behaviors, suggest that the "metacognitive hub model" could provide a clear and measurable theoretical framework of the different dimensions of craving. The overall objective of this project is to explore the relationship between the level of craving induced by food picture exposure and the level of impairment of the reflexive, automatic, interoceptive, and metacognitive systems in women with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder and to compare these impairments according to the nature of the eating disorder (i.e., binge eating versus bulimia nervosa). Our hypotheses are: the induction of food craving will affect the reflexive, automatic, and interoceptive systems of patients with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. the magnitude of the effect of food craving induction on implicit craving and explicit craving will be modulated by the participants' metacognitive abilities.

Feeding problems such as selective eating, loss of appetite, and mealtime behavior problems are common in childhood. Parents play a primary role in learning about feeding, and difficulties experienced in this process may cause the parent to experience stress, despair and exhibit incorrect attitudes. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of online occupational therapy group training for mothers on mothers' attitudes and stress levels, and children's eating behaviors. Mothers of children aged 3-6 years with feeding problems (n=29) were randomly divided into groups. Early Childhood Adaptive Eating Behavior Scale, Feeding Process Mother Attitudes Scale and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scales were used for evaluation. The mothers in the research group participated in the 4-week training. As a result of the research, positive effects were found on mothers' attitudes and children's eating behaviors (p<0.05). There was no change in mothers' state and trait anxiety levels (p>0.05). This study shows that online group training to mothers can support existing therapies and guides clinicians working in the field.

This study is aimed to test the efficacy of a positive psychological intervention for promoting positive emotions and optimistic thinking in eating disordered patients. Participants are randomly assigned to receive the positive intervention or the control condition, which consists on thinking about daily activities.

Psychological treatments are effective, but take a long time and can be burdensome. Therefore, avenues to optimize behavioral treatments are needed. Despite important advancements, neuroscience has had a limited effect on psychotherapy development. Therefore, one paradigm shift would be to develop neuroscience informed behavioral treatments. The investigators identified from the literature a problem that affects several mental disorders (emotion dysregulation) and a neural circuit that underlies this important concern. They found that this circuit is dysfunctional in those with psychopathology but can be changed with treatment. The goal is in one session to train this brain network to operate more efficiently and to test the short and long term effects of this intervention. The investigators plan to engage this brain network using a traditional psychotherapy strategy (cognitive restructuring) and to enhance learning using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a neuromodulation technique through which magnetic stimulation enhances the electrical activity in brain areas close to the scalp. The study team proposed two studies to examine this novel approach, In one of the studies 83 participants were enrolled and 47 eligible participants were divided into 3 groups. All participants were trained in emotion regulation by first being asked to remember an event where they experienced a negative emotion and then being instructed either to think differently about the event, or to wait. Participants simultaneously underwent either active (left or right side of brain) or sham rTMS. In a second study 65 participants were enrolled, and 31 were assigned to either active left or sham rTMS guided using neuroimaging results. Across both studies, the investigators measured regulation in the lab and during a-week long naturalistic assessment. Participants in the second study returned for a follow up neuroimaging visit at the end of this week. Participants returned for a one moth follow up assessment and to rate feasibility, acceptability, and provide feedback. This proof of concept set of studies demonstrated feasibility and preliminary efficacy for this approach, which opens new frontiers for neuroscience informed treatment development.

This study involves people with eating disorders and healthy volunteers (people who have never experienced an eating disorder). Participants are interviewed about their psychological and physical health by the experimenter and they have a simulated scan session (about 1 hour). Approximately 1 week after they attend the first study session. They are asked to complete questionnaires and computerized tasks (about 30 minutes) followed by the active scan (1 hour). During the brain scan they look at pictures and answer questions about the pictures. After the first study session, people with eating disorders receive an intensive meal-support intervention (in the following 3 months) aimed at reducing anxiety and fears related to food (10 sessions lasting about 60 min.). Three months after the first brain scan, participants with eating disorders and healthy controls receive a second assessment and brain scan. We hypothesized that the meal support intervention will be effective in: 1) targeting eating disorder symptoms (body mass index - BMI, primarily) and 2) producing functional changes in brain regions that underline food-related anxiety and avoidance.

The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a novel couple-based intervention for binge-eating disorder (BED).