Journal of Eating Disorders volume 9 , Article number: Cite this article. Metrics details. Studies on food cue reactivity have documented that altered responses to high-calorie food are associated with bulimic symptomatology, however, alterations in sexual motivations and behaviors are also associated clinical features in this population, which justify their inclusion as a research target. Here, we study responses to erotic cues—alongside food, neutral and aversive cues—to gain an understanding of specificity to food versus a generalized sensitivity to primary reinforcers.
We recorded peripheral psychophysiological indices —the startle reflex, zygomaticus, and corrugator responses—and self-reported emotional responses valence, arousal, and dominance in 75 women completing the Bulimia Test-Revised BULIT-R. Multiple regression analysis tested whether BULIT-R symptoms were predicted by self-reported and psychophysiological responses to food versus neutral and erotic versus neutral images.
The results showed that individuals with higher bulimic symptoms were characterized by potentiated eye blink startle response during binge food vs.
The results highlight the negative emotional reactivity of individuals with elevated bulimic symptoms toward food cues, which could be related to the risk of progression to full bulimia nervosa and thereby addressed in prevention efforts. Results also point to the potential role of reactivity to erotic content, at least on a subjective level. Theoretical models of eating disorders should widen their conceptual scope to consider reactivity to a broader spectrum of primary reinforcers, which would have implications for cue exposure-based treatments.
We examined appetitive and aversive cue responses in college women to investigate how bulimic symptoms relate to primary reinforcers such as food and erotic images. We recorded peripheral psychophysiological indices the startle reflex, zygomaticus, and corrugator responses and self-reported emotional responses valence, arousal, and dominance in 75 college women that were presented with the Spanish version of the Bulimia Test-Revised.
