Appetite Disorders: From Binge Eating to Anorexia Nervosa

This chapter discusses the main symptoms of the three major eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating (BED). It then describes the rodent models that are commonly used to explore them. AN is often associated with psychiatric comorbidities including depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive or personality disorders and chemical drug abuse. The high proneness to stress is a trigger for binge eating, not only in BED patients but also for BN patients. The physiopathological symptoms of AN and BN are tuned to find adaptive metabolic solutions to preserve energy before reaching a point that leads to exhaustion, mainly due to somatic and psychiatric complications. The use of animal models is thus useful to decipher the mechanisms involved at different levels, both peripherally and centrally, in order to find more suitable therapeutic treatments than those currently used.