Wisconsin Card Sorting Task performance in patients with lifetime anorexia nervosa and in healthy control women according to weight status and COMT genotype
| Group; mean (SD) raw score* | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genotype; WCST measure | Underweight† | Weight-restored† | Control | F2,62‡ | p value‡ |
| Met-Met | |||||
| No. | 16 | 15 | 34 | ||
| Global score | 70.0 (39.0) | 48.6 (39.3) | 34.2 (30.9) | 7.91 | 0.001§ |
| Perseverative responses | 27.6 (19.1) | 17.6 (17.1) | 11.5 (10.0) | 8.59 | 0.001§ |
| Nonperseverative responses | 20.8 (16.5) | 14.1 (9.6) | 11.1 (10.0) | 4.84 | 0.011§ |
| Val-Met | |||||
| No. | 30 | 47 | 68 | ||
| Global score | 42.2 (34.9) | 50.7 (32.1) | 37.2 (29.6) | 3.19 | 0.04 |
| Perseverative responses | 12.7 (9.2) | 17.4 (12.6) | 13.1 (11.3) | 3.08 | 0.05 |
| Nonperseverative responses | 14.3 (15.2) | 15.2 (11.0) | 11.0 (8.8) | 2.23 | 0.11 |
| Val-Val | |||||
| No. | 22 | 19 | 38 | ||
| Global score | 51.1 (35.2) | 53.6 (34.9) | 40.7 (31.8) | 1.90 | 0.16 |
| Perseverative responses | 17.4 (15.4) | 17.2 (14.9) | 13.9 (11.8) | 1.123 | 0.33 |
| Nonperseverative responses | 16.1 (12.0) | 16.0 (11.4) | 12.7 (12.3) | 1.512 | 0.23 |
COMT = catechol-O-methyltransferase; SD = standard deviation; WCST = Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. (23)
↵* Unless otherwise indicated.
↵† Patients with anorexia nervosa who were taking oral contraceptives were excluded.
↵‡ WCST scores adjusted for age and education were used for statistical analysis after logarithmic transformation. To account for multiple comparisons, results were considered to be significant at p < 0.0018.
↵§ Post hoc underweight anorexia nervosa > control.