Computed tomography of anorexia nervosa.

Computed tomographic studies were performed in patients with anorexia nervosa to confirm the observations of other authors on so-called reversible cerebral atrophy. In 21 of 23 cases a marked enlargement of the cortical sulci and the interhemispheric fissures was observed, which was reversed in a second computed tomographic study in 11 patients 4 weeks after they had reached normal weight. Psychological tests were carried out at the same time as the computed tomographic studies to correlate the changes in the brain tissue with cerebral function. Data obtained in each group of tests for both the initial and the follow-up studies were analyzed using the Student t-test. The differences were found to be statistically significant (p = 0.01 in most cases). The results indicate that anorexia nervosa is not only a psychodynamic problem, but also one in which an organic brain lesion plays an important role during the course of the illness.