The Experience of Affective Touch in Anorexia Nervosa (AffTouch_AN)

Istituto Auxologico Italiano

Status: Completed

Conditions: Anorexia Nervosa

Treatments: Other: Affective touch paradigm

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05756530

21C127

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of the present research will be to verify if the pleasantness of affective touch is comparable between women with AN and healthy women while measuring the level of social anhedonia and the lifespan experience of affective touch.

Enrollment: 60 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 50 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Right-handed
• diagnosis of restricting type or binge-eating/purging type AN, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition)'s criteria (DSM, American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Exclusion criteria

• Concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders
• Evidence of any skin-related condition possibly affecting sensitivity on the participants' forearm (e.g., eczema, scars).

Trial design

60 participants in 2 patient groups

Cases

Description:

Right-handed women diagnosed with restricting type or binge-eating/purging type AN, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition)'s criteria (DSM, American Psychiatric Association, 2013), will be consecutively recruited during their rehabilitative treatment at the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, San Giuseppe Hospital (Italy). Concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders will be the exclusion criteria, as well as the evidence of any skin-related condition possibly affecting sensitivity on the participants' forearm (e.g., eczema, scars)

Treatment:

Other: Affective touch paradigm

Controls

Description:

Age-matched, right-handed, healthy women (i.e., with no history of eating disorders) will be recruited outside the hospital through personal contacts of the researchers and word-of-mouth.

Treatment:

Other: Affective touch paradigm