Mirrorlights: Researchers find connection between early life trauma, binge eating disorder

Mirrorlights: Researchers find connection between early life trauma, binge eating disorder
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Over eight out of ten of those who have binge eating disorder, which affects about 3 percent of Americans--also experienced childhood abuse, neglect, or other trauma.

Now, a Virginia Tech scientist has identified how early life trauma may change the brain to increase the risk of binge eating later in life. Research led by principal investigator Sora Shin, an assistant professor with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, revealed how a pathway in the brain that typically provides signals to stop eating may be altered by early life trauma.


The discovery, obtained from studies in mice, in Nature Neuroscience on Dec. 12 adds new perspective to behaviors such as binge eating and obesity.

“We wanted to know the mechanism underlying how early life trauma induces these eating disorders,” said Shin, who is also an assistant professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “What we found is a specific brain circuit that is vulnerable to stress, causing it to become dysfunctional.”


“This finding speaks to a set of broader health questions, which is how life’s health course is set based on certain early experiences,” said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and Virginia Tech’s vice president for Health Sciences and Technology.