Cognitive and emotional regulation in adolescents and young women with eating disorders

Background Eating disorders (EDs) are associated with a reduced ability to regulate emotion and impulses during the lifrks involving the pre-frontal cortex. Studies in EDs found impaired functioning in these domains, showing an association between EDs and the reduced ability to control emotions and impulses. Objective To investigate EF in adolescents and young women with eating disorders (ED) using a quasi-experimental design, focusing on cognitive efficiency, emotional regulation (ER) and behavioural outcomes also taking into account pharmaco- logical treatment and duration of illness. Methods A sample of 151 females belonging to two groups took part in this study. Twenty-six girls and young women (Mage 22;8 years) with ED and 125 typically developed girls and young women (Mage 17;4 years) completed a battery of cognitive tasks (Go–no-go, Stop-signal task, Symmetry span, Reading Span)and the Youth Self-Report and the Difficulties in Emo- tional Regulation Scale Performance. A series of ANOVA with the Brown–Forsythe test was used to compare the groups. Results Participants with ED and controls did not show significant differences in EF tasks, whereas differences between younger and older participants with ED emerged. Moreover, ER difficulties seem to be associated with mainly internalizing problems in EDs. Further analysis on the full ED sample did not reveal any significant differences associated with the disorder persistence. Considering pharmacological treatment effects over cognitive, emotional and behavioural measures emerged. Conclusions The present study documented no specific differences in EF between control and participants with EDs, whereas important differences emerged in ER and behavioural outcomes perception in the clinical sample, together with a partial influence of pharmacological treatment. Levelofevidence LevelIII,case-controlstudy.