Evidence for altered configural body processing in women at risk of disorders characterized by body image disturbance.

Two studies were conducted to assess appearance-related visual processing mechanisms in populations at risk of disorders characterized by body image disturbance. Using inverted stimuli, Experiment 1 assessed visual processing mechanisms associated with body, face, and house viewing in adolescents. Experiment 2 applied the same protocol to assess appearance-related configural processing in high- and low-risk adolescent women, and women recovering from disorders characterized by body image disturbance. Experiment 1 found evidence for typical configural face and body processing, although adolescent women reported higher levels of body image concern (BIC) and self-objectified to a greater extent than adolescent men. In Experiment 2, typical body inversion effects were seen in the low-risk group, whilst there was some evidence to suggest a disruption to the configural processing of body stimuli in high-risk adolescents and in women recovering from body image disorders. Women in recovery were also quicker to respond to all stimuli, whilst high-risk adolescents took longer to respond to bodies than to other stimuli. Configural face processing was intact in all groups, and effects did not directly relate to BIC or self-objectification. These findings have implications for future research looking to inform early interventions and treatment, suggesting that there could be a tendency to visually process individual body parts at the expense of the whole-body form in women at risk of developing body image disorders, as well as those in recovery.

Early visual ERPs show stable body-sensitive patterns over a 4-week test period.

Event-related potential (ERP) studies feature among the most cited papers in the field of body representation, with recent research highlighting the potential of ERPs as neuropsychiatric biomarkers. Despite this, investigation into how reliable early visual ERPs and body-sensitive effects are over time has been overlooked. This study therefore aimed to assess the stability of early body-sensitive effects and visual P1, N1 and VPP responses. Participants were asked to identify pictures of their own bodies, other bodies and houses during an EEG test session that was completed at the same time, once a week, for four consecutive weeks. Results showed that amplitude and latency of early visual components and their associated body-sensitive effects were stable over the 4-week period. Furthermore, correlational analyses revealed that VPP component amplitude might be more reliable than VPP latency and specific electrode sites might be more robust indicators of body-sensitive cortical activity than others. These findings suggest that visual P1, N1 and VPP responses, alongside body-sensitive N1/VPP effects, are robust indications of neuronal activity. We conclude that these components are eligible to be considered as electrophysiological biomarkers relevant to body representation.

Evidence for ERP biomarkers of eating disorder symptoms in women.

Growing evidence suggests that the brain processes bodies distinctively from other stimuli, but little research has addressed whether visual body perception is modulated by the observer's thoughts and feelings about their own body. The present study thus investigated the relationship between body image and electrophysiological signatures of body perception, with the aim of identifying potential biomarkers of body image disturbances. Occipito-parietal (P1 and N1) and fronto-central (VPP) processing of body and non-body stimuli were assessed in 29 weight-restored eating disordered (ED) women and compared to 27 healthy controls. Rapid early visual processing was seen in the ED group, as the entire P1-N1 complex unfolded significantly earlier compared to controls. ED women also showed a gender-sensitive response to other women's bodies over N1 and VPP components. Such gender-sensitivity was not evident in controls. Moreover, ERP effects correlated with scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory-II (EDI-2), indicating a close link between the observers' ED symptomatology, including body image, and the visual analysis of human bodies during very early stages of cortical processing. The temporal dynamics of visual body perception may therefore serve as potential neural markers for the identification of ED symptomatology in 'at risk' populations.