TYPE Editorial PUBLISHED 13 October 2023 DOI 10.3389/fnut.2023.1289370 Editorial: Neurological, OPEN ACCESS psychological and endocrine markers of eating disorders and APPROVED BY Reza Rastmanesh, American Physical Society, United States *CORRESPONDENCE Fernando Fernández-Aranda obesity ffernandez@bellvitgehospital.cat 05 September 2023 RECEIVED ACCEPTED 03 October 2023 Fernando Fernández-Aranda1,2,3,4*, Roser Granero1,2,5 and PUBLISHED 13 October 2023 Susana Jiménez-Murcia1,2,3,4 CITATION 1 Fernández-Aranda F, Granero R and CIBER Physiology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN), Carlos III Health Institute, Madrid, Spain, 2 Jiménez-Murcia S (2023) Editorial: Psychoneurobiology of Eating and Addictive Behaviors Group, Neurosciences Programme, Bellvitge Neurological, psychological and endocrine Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Barcelona, Spain, 3 Clinical Psychology Unit, University Hospital markers of eating disorders and obesity. of Bellvitge, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Department of Clinical Sciences, School of Medicine and Health Front. Nutr. 10:1289370. Sciences, University of Barcelona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain, 5 Department of doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1289370 Psychobiology and Methodology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain COPYRIGHT © 2023 Fernández-Aranda, Granero and KEYWORDS Jiménez-Murcia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative neurological, psychological, endocrine, eating disorders, obesity Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. Editorial on the Research Topic No use, distribution or reproduction is Neurological, psychological and endocrine markers of eating disorders permitted which does not comply with these and obesity terms. 1. Eating disorders and obesity: converging issues Eating disorders (ED) are severe mental disorders characterized by severe and persistent dysfunctional thoughts about food accompanied by bizarre impairing eating behaviors. The ED category comprises diagnostic criteria for split diagnostic subtypes, being the most common in clinical and general populations anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED) and other specified feeding and eating disorders (OSFED) (1). Some of these conditions can occur in individuals who are underweight (AN), normalweight (BN) and overweight (BED). However, most of the patients report cognitive distortions in their body image associated to compensative conducts to promote thinness (compulsive exercise, restrictive eating, purging, vomiting, and laxative/diuretics misuse). With the progression of the disorder, the altered consumption or absorption of food lead to multiple harming correlates on the physical and psychosocial areas (2), as well as high likelihood of comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders (such as anxiety, depression and substance use disorders), disability and mortality rates (3, 4). The prevalence estimates within developed societies for ED is around 5% of the general population (5), depending on the ED subtype, and large increases in incidences have been reported worldwide during the lasts decades, and specially after COVID lockdown. This panorama points to the need of new etiological research to identify underlying mechanisms among clinical and population-based samples. Obesity (OB) is a severe disease, defined as the excessive-needless fat accumulation with the consequence of risk to health, with a body mass index (commonly used to classify weight state and calculated the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters, kg/m2 ) equal or over 30 among adulthood (6). Prevalence of OB has grown to epidemic magnitudes in developed countries around all ages (from early childhood through to old age), as a result of energy imbalance based on diets with increased consumption of energy Frontiers in Nutrition 01 frontiersin.org Fernández-Aranda et al. 10.3389/fnut.2023.1289370 dense foods without equivalent increase of physical activity. Under clinical implications for dealing with ED and OB. First, for this budget research line, studies have observed the association developing reliable prevention plans and early detection of eating between some type of foods (such as ultra-processed, which provide problematic behaviors (29, 30). Second, to phenotype high-risk large amounts of saturated fats and free sugars) plus the eating of ED and OB by identifying the neurobehavioral basis of the patterns/habits with the incidence rates of obesity (7, 8). food choices, eating styles and motivation processes (31, 32). While OB was been traditionally considered separate to the And third, to improve treatment effectiveness with new therapy ED spectrum, recent empirical research and systematic reviews interventions, which combine neurobiological techniques with suggest that this polarization is flawed (9, 10). The complex other psychological therapies (such as cognitive-behavioral relationships between OB and ED can be represented by dynamic treatments) (33, 34). These procedures have been developed shared pathways, impacting on weight and eating related problems. with the aim to modify neural plasticity of food-related brain The common multiple interacting factors can be visualized in functions implied in the onset and severity of the unappropiated dynamic networks-structures, which contribute to the onset and learned behaviors, and therefore to restore and/or optimize healthy to the developmental trajectories in each individual: (a) biological cognitions and eating habits. Currently, diverse neurophysiological components, including genetics, brain functioning, endocrine and interventions have been tested as encouraging experimental metabolic systems; (b) psychological variables, such as personality treatment tools, including functional magnetic resonance imaging profile, self-perception and body image; (c) social context, mainly (fMRI), pharmacogenetic fMRI, real-time fMRI neurofeedback, cultural and social ideals centered on beauty, as well as the impact of positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission the media; and (d) other individual variables, comprising physical computed tomography (SPECT), repetitive transcranial magnetic and mental health state. Other common features associated to the stimulation (rTMS), transcranial direct-current stimulation progression of these disorders are comorbid adverse physical and (tDCS), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). mental health conditions, substantial impairment in global quality The aim of this Research Topic is to provide new empirical of life, stigma and high resistance to changet (11). evidence regarding the underlying triggers of ED and OB. The study of Liu et al. identified targets of fucoidan for treating perfluorooctanoic acid associated obesity through the regulation of 2. Biological markers of ED and OB: endoplasmic reticulum stress, using different systematic analytical procedures (such as network pharmacologic and bioinformatics). from genetic to neuropsychological Zhang et al. assessed the swallowing function of patients with acute markers ischemic stroke and next developed a prognostic model for the need for nasogastric tube. The cross-sectional analysis conducted Evidence from etiological research suggests the existence by Ribeiro et al. examined the association between the altered of multiple biological markers related to the onset and sweet taste perception (i.e., intensity and pleasantness ratings of progression of both ED and OB, including genetic and sour, salt, sweet and bitter tastants, and taste thresholds assessed neuropsychological processes, but also shared brain neurocircuitry by electrogustometry) with obesity. Finally, Janssen et al. carried and metaboloic signals. The overall observation of studies including out a controlled-randomized trial employed magnètic resonance neuropsychological measures is the identification of dysfunction imaging to assess the impact of a mindful eating intervention (with in the impulse-inhibitory control responses and the executive a duration of 8-weeks) on striatal reward anticipation response. functioning (including deficits in attention, decision-making and Overall, the results obtained in these studies coud be particularly set-shifting), and these impairments should contribute to the useful for developing reliable assessment tools and evidence-based ED-OB severity at baseline (12–16), and also on the short- and intervention plans (focused on the individual needs of patients, long-term therapy outcomes (17–21). More specifically, results of from a multidisciplinary perspective) and necessary to reduce the genetic neuroimaging, functional and molecular studies observed burden of disease. dopaminergic alterations and decreased basal metabolism in the prefrontal cortex and striatum among OB patients, and increased activation of reward brain regions in response to palatable food Author contributions cues among ED patients (22). Consistent regional group differences have been identified according with the diagnostic subtype (23), FF-A: Writing—original draft, Writing—review and editing. suggesting that restrictive eating styles (such as AN) lead to RG: Writing—original draft, Writing—review and editing. SJ-M: decrease in brain volume (24) and brain abnormalities involving Writing—original draft, Writing—review and editing. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, visual cortex, mesolimbic areas (striatum, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum) (25). On the other extreme of the continuum (excessive eating styles, such as Funding those characteristics in the bulimic spectrum conditions [BN, BED and OB]), neuroimaging research suggests that the reward neural This research was funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos system achieves a relevant impact, and that the excessive episodes III (ISCIII) (FIS PI20/00132) and co-funded by FEDER of food consumption should be the consequence of the need of funds/European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), a way large quantities of food until perceiving satisfaction (26–28). to build Europe. CIBERobn is an initiative of ISCIII. This work was The empirical evidence obtained in the etiological studies based additionally supported by a grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia, on functional and molecular neuroimaging has transboundary Innovación y Universidades (grant RTI2018-101837-B-100), the Frontiers in Nutrition 02 frontiersin.org Fernández-Aranda et al. 10.3389/fnut.2023.1289370 Delegación del Gobierno para el Plan Nacional sobre Drogas Conflict of interest (2019I47 and 2021I031). This study was also funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under FF-A and SJ-M received consultancy honoraria from grant agreement no. 847879 (PRIME/H2020, Prevention and Novo Nordisk. FF-A received editorial honoraria as Remediation of Insulin Multimorbidity in Europe). Additional EIC fromWiley. funding was received from AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya The remaining author declares that the research was (2021-SGR-00824). RG was supported by the Catalan Institution conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA-Academia, 2021- relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict Programme). The funders had no role in the design of the study, in of interest. the interpretation of data, and in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results. Publisher’s note Acknowledgments All claims expressed in this article are solely those We thank CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of for institutional support. We also thank Instituto de Salud their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, Carlos III (ISCIII), CIBERobn (an initiative of ISCIII), FEDER the editors and the reviewers. 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