Welcome to The Eating Disorder Institute

The 3 main mechanisms of how neuroplastic changes occur in the brain?

Biologically it can happen in a few ways:

1. By sprouting new endings from the body of the neuron and connecting them differently to the different neurons.

2. Changing the levels of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters)
 
3. Growing new neurons  (this process is called neurogenesis)

Let’s quickly look through them one by one.

1. Sprouting of new neuronal endings will occur when you start doing new behaviors or new actions. These new behaviors have to be done repeatedly and regularly in order to sprout new endings.

For example, when you start regularly performing the act of binging, purging or starving oneself your brain cells (neurons) sprout new endings forming eating disorder pathways. These are then responsible for the binge, purge and starving episodes.

You continue because the urge is so strong as you have built these faulty neuronal pathways in your brain.

You may feel that it is impossible for you to stop these abnormal actions but the truth is that you can stop these bad actions by sprouting new neuronal endings and forming new neuronal pathways which can replace the old ones. The mechanism for sprouting these new endings (good one) is exactly the same – you should start performing new constructive behaviors regularly; ones not based on food abuse.

2. Changing the level of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) – can also occur with different behaviors you do. Some certain behaviors we do because the level of brain chemicals remains too high or too low. 

For example, neurotransmitter acetylcholine gets produced when people start learning and paying more attention to things they are learning. 

Acetylcholine is your attention getter. It gets produced when you pay attention to things and you became more attentive and learn better when you have a sufficient level of acetylcholine being produced.  So, memorizing poetry, learning a foreign language, solving math problems, writing an essay, learning about how your brain works and etc. – all these activity will improve the level of acetylcholine in your brain.

People with eating disorders often can’t concentrate. It is because the level of the brain chemical acetylcholine is too low. But to improve it you must force yourself to focus and concentrate on something useful. Then your concentration will become better because by initial forcing yourself to concentrate you improve the level of this important chemical in your brain.

3. Growing new neurons. Recent research shows growing evidence that the adult human brain creates new neurons, a process known as neurogenesis. Now scientists have found that the areas in the brain where these new neurons grow can be stimulated by actions and neurogenesis occurs.  One of the most important areas where neurogenesis occurs is in the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is the middle part of the brain and it forms one part of limbic system. The hippocampus is directly responsible for memory and our emotions.

People with eating disorders most likely have a chemical imbalance in hippocampus. Eating disorder sufferers store lots of memories of hurts and dissatisfaction with themselves in hippocampus. And their bad emotions come from these memories.

The conclusion is that by growing new neurons in the hippocampus you may help stop your distractive eating disorder behaviour.

Now you are probably interested in how you can stimulate the processes of neurogenesis.

Our next article will explain it all.

3)  What are Neurotransmitters and How do they Influence the development of Eating Disorders?

Neurotransmitters are chemicals which facilitate the transmission of signal from one neuron to another. Neurotransmitters are released in synapses (or where the ending of one neuron connects to the endings of another neuron).

There are different types of neurotransmitters. Here we will look at the most important ones.

Acetylcholine:  Acetylcholine is a chemical which are involved in memory, learning and attention. When you learn something and pay attention to it – you stimulate the production of acetylcholine.

To maintain this chemical at a certain level you must keep your brain busy with attention requiring work. Study, read books, create something, solve puzzles, get a job where you can use your brain. Just do something that can stimulate the production of acetylcholine in the brain.

Eating disorder sufferers have often a very low acetylcholine level especially when they give up their studies, job and other productive activities for the sake of their eating disorder. They normally explain this quitting as the inability to concentrate, being too weak and etc.

This all happens because the level of acetylcholine in their brain is low. But they can improve it by exercising their own will, going back to study  and beginning to  learn again and paying attention to something more useful and constructive than their eating disorder.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which produces a sense of well-being calm and satisfaction. Many scientists blame the lack of this chemical for eating disorder problems. Serotonin has a broad function in the brain. It regulates and moderates anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, human sexuality, appetite, and metabolism, as well as stimulating vomiting.

It is still not clear what exactly happens with serotonin in the brain of eating disorder sufferers, as it is difficult to measure. But we know there are many genetic variations in the serotonin receptors and the serotonin transporters in the brain.
It is most likely that a serotonin abnormality in the brain affects each person differently. Serotonin levels can be increased naturally by taking tryptophan rich foods found in meats and proteins.

Dopamine: Dopamine is a chemical associated with pleasurable activity. It is released when people do naturally rewarding activities like having sex or enjoying food. Some drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and amphetamines can influence the level of dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine is actually the culprit in many addictions such as drugs, food, and sex addictions. Dopamine also has other functions in the brain, including important roles in behaviour and cognition, motor activity, motivation and reward, inhibition of prolactin production which is involved in lactation, sleep, mood, attention, and learning.

Recent research has suggested that dopamine is also released in reward-anticipation activities and when people are motivated to do something. If you have ever wondered why you feel great after doing aerobics or playing sport, this is the brain producing dopamine. Just thinking about doing something pleasurable can produce a chemical ‘reward’ of dopamine being released in your brain.

Enjoyable learning and focusing on something you really like doing will stimulate dopamine production in your brain.
The release of dopamine triggers the desire to eat certain foods. The dopamine does not increase the pleasure of actually eating food but is released when the person sees, smells, thinks or dreams about food. Tasting enjoyable food also provokes the release of dopamine.

Dopamine plays an important role in bulimia and binge eating because these people often dream and think about food. And it is why when a bulimic or binge eater sees food she/he goes on a binge losing all sense of control.

Glutamate –it is believed that glutamate (or glutamic acid) is involved in cognitive functions like learning and memory. Many foods contain glutamate, including cheese, soy sauce, fish, eggs, poultry etc.

GABA is a neurotransmitter which is responsible for muscle tones. GABA regulates the growth embryonic and neural stem cells. Abnormal levels of GABA have been found in people with mood disorders.

Substance P is an important chemical which involves pain perception. It also participates in regulation of mood disorders, anxiety, stress, reinforcement, neurogenesis, nausea and vomiting. The vomiting centre in the brain contains high concentrations of Substance P. Activation of Substance P stimulates vomiting. People who use vomiting as a way of purging have abnormalities in the levels of Substance P.

Conclusion:  Neurotransmitters play an important role in the biochemistry of eating disorders. But… The level of most of these neurotransmitters can be moderated by performing or not-performing certain actions and behaviours. Replacing one behaviour with another can change the level of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Wilful action can produce extraordinary changes in the level of these chemicals.  For instance, if you wilfully stop your binging or purging episodes for at least 2-3 weeks and replace this behaviour with more productive ones, the level of neurotransmitters in your brain will change significantly and can become completely normal again. This works on the use it or lose it principle.

Always remember: your behaviour will change your biology. If you behave better – your biology improves, if you behave worse – your biology becomes worse.

What is neuroplasticity?

Neuroplasticity is the natural ability of the brain to change its own structure in response to new situations, new behaviours or changes of the environment. Neuroplastic changes occur in a few different ways: by changing the neuronal connections, by sprouting new nerve endings and even by growing new neurons.

Neuro is for neuron, the nerve cells in our brains. Plastic is for “changeable, malleable, modifiable.” Without operations or medications you can make use of the brain’s amazing ability to change and transform your life in the direction you want.  This ability can help you stop bad habits, change your feelings and cure many diseases including the most insidious ones like eating disorders.

For the past four hundred years this new thinking was inconceivable because mainstream medicine and science believed that brain anatomy was fixed. The conventional knowledge was that after infancy the brain can’t really change itself and was fully developed, only at old age when the brain starts the long process of decline was it believed to change.

This theory of the unchanging brain put people with mental and emotional problems under a lot of limitations. It basically meant that if you had a problem like an eating disorder, you more or less have to suffer for a life of taking drugs and being sick.

This kind of thinking made people believe that real treatments for mental disorders are always biological and involve drugs and that psychological (talk) therapy is not biological and just merely talk, so would not work.

But now, we have important data from psychoanalytical therapies and neuroscience that shows that when patients come in with their brains in certain states of miss wiring (mental states) then after undertaking psychological (neuroplastic) interventions their brains can be rewired without drugs or surgeries. This proves that neuroplastic therapy is every bit as biological as the use of drugs and even more precise at times because it is targeted.

To prove this fact American psychiatrist Dr Jeffrey M. Schwartz (UCLA School of Medicine) did some amazing research on his patients who suffered different form s of obsessions and compulsions. His patients went through neuroplastic treatment called “Four Step Self-Treatment Method”.

Before and after the treatment his patients had a PET scan of their brain. The PET scan showed that after neuroplastic treatment there was reduced activity in brain’s caudate nucleus (the centre of the brain which gets overactive with patients with obsessions).

Obsessions and compulsions are the main components of eating disorders but in relation to food.

So, this research showed that neuroplastic therapy can biologically change the structure of the brain and help people to be free from their obsessions without drugs.

To understand how neuroplastic change occurs read the article “Structure of neuron and neuronal connections (pathways)”.

Dr Irina Webster.