Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa Through Virtual Reality-Based Body Exposure and Reduction of Attentional Bias

Abstract

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe disorder. It has higher mortality rates than other eating disorders (ED) and is increasingly being diagnosed in younger patients. One of the main fears among individuals with AN is the fear of gaining weight (FGW). Patients with AN also display dysfunctional behaviors that aim to avoid weight gain by drastically reducing food intake, vomiting, using laxatives and diuretics, or doing intense exercises. AN patients engage in frequent conduct of checking and scrutinizing those parts of their body directly related with weight, which suggests attention focused on the body that has a dysfunctional nature. Although research on the presence of attentional biases in ED is extensive, very little has been done up to the present to apply the information gathered in those studies with the purpose of improving the efficacy of the available treatments. One of our recent projects aimed to provide evidence of the efficacy of a virtual reality-based body exposure therapy in AN in directly targeting the FGW through a randomized controlled clinical trial. We are currently developing a new clinical trial to test whether the addition of a component aimed at reducing the attentional bias towards the body serves to intensify the effect of the exposure treatment. It is expected that the reduction of the attentional bias will facilitate the control of visual avoidance behaviors during exposure sessions, increasing the efficacy of the treatment.