Is brain size related to eating disorders?

University of Colorado researchers discovered that girls with anorexia nervosa had a larger insula, a part of the brain that is active when tasting food, in comparison to girls without the disorder. They also found evidence of a larger orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that signals when to stop eating, in anorexic girls.

“The negative correlation between taste pleasantness and orbitofrontal cortex volume in individuals with anorexia nervosa could contribute to food avoidance in this disorder,” wrote the authors in their study newly published inThe Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

via Brain Size Linked To Eating Disorders: Anorexics Have More White Matter And Gray Matter.