Gut Hormones and Effort-Cost Computation in Bulimia Nervosa

Individuals with bulimia nervosa binge-eat and purge (e.g., self-induced vomiting, laxatives and/or diuretic misuse, and compulsive exercise) to control their shape or weight or to compensate for an episode of loss-of-control eating.  

This project is conducted by Dr. Laura Berner to examine the influence of abnormal levels of a gut-hormone, ghrelin, which is also known as the "hunger hormone," on effort-cost computation and decision making in women with bulimia nervosa.

My contributions to this project included:

• Managed study protocol applications and amendments with the Institutional Review Board
• Programmed surveys in REDCap
• Worked with collaborators during study setup
• Created a comprehensive study protocol
• Coordinated study recruitment, screening, and data collection procedures
• Administered and scored neurocognitive assessments (e.g., Abbreviated Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WASI-II))
• Conducted psychodiagnostic interviews with study participants with eating disorders and healthy controls using the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE v.17.0), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5), and the borderline personality disorder (BPD) module of the SCID-5 Personality Disorders (SCID-5-PD)
• Managed behavioral and preprocessed neuroendocrine data
• Managed study databases and trackers in Microsoft Excel and Access
• Scored preliminary data in MATLAB
• Cleaned and visualized preliminary data in R

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• Dai, J., Westbrook, A., Chester, M.A., Viranda, T., Berner, L.A. (2024, November). Inflated subjective costs of cognitive effort are state-specific in bulimia nervosa. Poster accepted for presentation at the 2024 annual convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Philadelphia, PA
• Berner, L.A., Dai, J., Shevlin, B.R.K., Westbrook, A., Viranda, T., Chester, M.A. (2024, September). “I might as well go all the way”: increased subjective costs of control-related effort after eating in bulimia nervosa. Poster presented at the 2024 annual Eating Disorders Research Society Conference, Sitges, Spain.

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