Harvard Brain Collection Will Help Scientists Dive Inside Eating Disorders

Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating affect tens of millions of Americans, but eating disorders remain very difficult to treat, in part because it's not clear what goes wrong in the brain.

"We don't really have a lot of information on what kind of brain changes, what kind of underlying pathology may be not only contributing to brain disorders, but also caused by brain disorders, as induced by an altered diet," said Dr. Sabina Berretta, scientific director of the brain bank — formally called the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center — at McLean Hospital.