The Experience of Affective Touch in Anorexia Nervosa

Istituto Auxologico Italiano60 enrolled

Overview

The aim of the present research will be to verify if the pleasantness of affective touch is comparable between women with AN and healthy women while measuring the level of social anhedonia and the lifespan experience of affective touch.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

Conditions

Anorexia Nervosa

Interventions

Affective touch paradigmOTHER

Affective touch paradigm: experimental stimuli will include the touch of a soft cosmetic, a hand, which will be both expected to resemble affective pleasant stimulations, and a plastic stick with a rounded tip, as a control (non-affective) condition. Two speeds of stimulation will be adopted i) slow affective stimuli delivered at 3 cm/s and fast non-affective stimuli, delivered at non-optimal speed (18 cm/s). An imagery version of the task will be also administered: blindfolded participants will be asked to image the touches on their left forearm. After each (actual or imagined) tactile stimulus, individuals will rate the experience level of pleasantness. As part of the protocol, they will fill out two psychological questionnaires, assessing the level of social anhedonia and the amount and characteristics of the lifespan experiences of affective touch in close relationships.

Eligibility

Sex: FEMALEMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 50 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion criteria: * Right-handed * diagnosis of restricting type or binge-eating/purging type AN, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition)'s criteria (DSM, American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Exclusion Criteria: * Concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders * Evidence of any skin-related condition possibly affecting sensitivity on the participants' forearm (e.g., eczema, scars).

Locations (1)

IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano - Ospedale San Giuseppe

Piancavallo, VCO, Italy

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Rating of subjective pleasantness

Behavioural outcome associated with the experimental paradigm: participants will be asked to rate the pleasantness of the tactile stimuli after each stimulation with a score ranging from zero not pleasant at all) to 100 (extremely pleasant).

Time frame: Baseline

Secondary Outcomes

Social Anhedonia Score

Social anhedonia will be evaluated with the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS, Gooding and Pflum, 2014); this is a 17-item self-report measure of individuals' tendency to look forward to interactions with others (anticipatory interpersonal pleasure - 7 items) and experienced pleasure in social interactions (consummatory interpersonal pleasure - 10 items). The ACIPS is scored on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (very false for me) to 6 (very true for me); higher scores indicate higher anticipatory and consummatory interpersonal pleasure.the assessment

Time frame: Baseline

Affective experience Score

The lifespan experience of affective touch in close relationships will be assessed with the Tactile Biography questionnaire (TBIO, Beltrán et al., 2020). This includes a 29-item self-report measure scored on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (e.g., not at all true for me) to 5 (e.g., extremely true) that evaluate four independent components: the frequency of and satisfaction for affective touch i) in childhood/adolescence and ii) adulthood, iii) comfort with and iv) fondness for interpersonal touch in close relationships. However, the experience of affective touch in adulthood was not included in the analyses since most of our participants did not have long experience in adult relationships since their age. Three additional items allow the recording of the feelings experienced in bodily affective interactions, the presence of negative/unpleasant experiences involving interpersonal touch and the preference for giving and/or receiving affective touch.affective touch in close relationships.

Time frame: Baseline

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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