Bulimia Nervosa (BN) is believed to have a multidimensional causality including developmental factors and neurobiological vulnerabilities. This study examined diverse clinical features (e.g., binge and vomit frequency, eating attitudes, impulsivity, dissociative symptoms, and affective instability) and two putative causal agents (e.g., childhood sexual/physical abuse and serotonin abnormalities) in bulimics with and without a comorbid Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Twenty-seven BN sufferers and 25 normal-eater controls underwent a multidimensional assessment of eating symptoms, psychiatric symptoms, personality disturbances, experiences of childhood abuse and serotonin (5-HT) dysfunction. The latter was measured using paroxetine binding in blood platelets. In contrast to control subjects, borderline and nonborderline bulimics both displayed comparable abnormalities on paroxetine binding Bmax measure and eating symptomatology, whereas the borderline bulimics alone displayed particular elevations on measures of childhood trauma, impulsivity, dissociation, and to some extent affective instability. We interpret our results as suggesting that problems of 5-HT neurotransmission may be associated generally with BN, whereas developmental abuse may be relevant to characterological disturbances seen in only a subset of BN sufferers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20964 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Léonard, Stéphanie. |
| Contributors | Steiger, Howard (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001631003, proquestno: MQ50816, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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