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Anorexia nervosa presents vexing clinical challenges. Other than nutrition, no biological intervention is effective, and nutritional programs frequently fail in patients with serious and enduring conditions. In a proof-of-concept study, investigators randomized 60 patients with DSM-5–diagnosed anorexia nervosa to one application of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) or sham rTMS. The target was the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is implicated in this disorder's pathogenesis. Of the 49 patients who completed the study, all were female (restrictive subtype, 28; binge-purge subtype, 21; mean age, 27; body-mass index, 16.5; illness duration, 10 years).
On assessments for core symptoms (a food challenge…