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“Attention please! Modifying visual attention towards food to overcome food avoidance and self-starvation in Anorexia Nervosa patients”.

Projektbeschreibung:
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a severe mental disorder characterized by fear of food and avoidance of eating. Despite the fact that AN is life-threatening due to self-starvation, there is no successful therapy for adults. An implicit key-process that contributes to restrictive eating is that AN patients frequently avoid looking at food. The proposed study introduces a novel perspective on treatment by focussing on changing implicit processes underlying food-related fears and avoidance. The aim of my study is to experimentally modify attention towards food using an innovative computerized training-paradigm. 75 AN patients will be randomized to an active attention modification condition or one of two control conditions. I hypothesize that the active attention modification will change attentional avoidance of food, and transfer to changes in psychological, physiological, behavioural and clinical indicators of food-related fears and avoidance. I will conduct this study at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College in London (UK) whose eating disorders unit provides excellent facilities and expertise needed for this project. The knowledge derived from this study will set the stage for research on implicit instead of explicit processes contributing to food-related fears and avoidance, an understudied core-feature of AN, and can inform on easily-implemented treatment options.

Ansprechpartner: Werthmann J
Email: Werthmann@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de
Projektlaufzeit:
Projektbeginn: 20.11.2014
Projektende: 30.12.2018
Projektleitung:
Werthmann J

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Kooperationspartner
King's College London, UK
Finanzierung:

  • Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO): Rubicon grant, Land

Schlagworte:

    Attention bias modification, adult anorexia nervosa, food-related fear, eating avoidance, implicit avoidance

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