Lauren Breithaupt Langston, Ph.D
Member of the Faculty, Psychiatry Department, Harvard Medical School
Assistant Professor, Psychiatry Department, Harvard Medical School
Eating Disorder Clinical and Research Program and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr Lauren Breithaupt is a faculty member at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry (Psychology), based in the Eating Disorder Clinical and Research Program and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She completed her pre- and post- doctoral training Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in translational neuroscience.
Dr. Breithaupt holds a PhD in Psychology (Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience) from George Mason University, which was funded by two National Science Foundation grants.
Dr. Breithaupt's program of research focuses on understanding the neurobiology of eating disorders, a heterogenous class of disorders highly prevalent among females with substantial morbidity risk. In her research, she uses advance neuroimaging to identify state-specific consequences of dieting behaviors that contribute to the intractable and chronic nature of restrictive eating disorders in to develop novel biologics to improve treatment outcomes. This research is currently funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Brain Behavior Research Foundation. Dr. Breithaupt is a past recipient of the Early Career Investigator Award from the Eating Disorders Research Society, Society for Biological Psychiatry, and American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Results from Dr. Breithaupt's research has been featured in several prominent news sources, including, CNN Health, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Scientific American. Her clinical expertise includes evidence based treatments for adolescents and adults with eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorders.
Publications
Major Research Interests: Eating disorders, immunometabolism, sex-hormones
Breithaupt, L., Köhler-Forsberg, O., Larsen, J. T., Benros, M. E., Thornton, L. M., Bulik, C. M., & Petersen, L. (2019). Association of exposure to infections in childhood with risk of eating disorders in adolescent girls. JAMA psychiatry, 76(8), 800-809.
Breithaupt, L., Chunga-Iturry, N., Lyall, A. E., Cetin-Karayumak, S., Becker, K. R., Thomas, J. J., ... & Eddy, K. T. (2020). Developmental stage-dependent relationships between ghrelin levels and hippocampal white matter connections in low-weight anorexia nervosa and atypical anorexia nervosa. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 119, 104722.
Bulik, C. M., Coleman, J. R., Hardaway, J. A., Breithaupt, L., Watson, H. J., Bryant, C. D., & Breen, G. (2022). Genetics and neurobiology of eating disorders. Nature Neuroscience, 25(5), 543-554.
Breithaupt, L., Kahn, D. L., Slattery, M., Plessow, F., Mancuso, C., Izquierdo, A., ... & Eddy, K. T. (2022). Eighteen-month Course and Outcome of Adolescent Restrictive Eating Disorders: Persistence, Crossover, and Recovery. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 1-11.
Hedman, A., Breithaupt, L., Hübel, C., Thornton, L. M., Tillander, A., Norring, C., ... & Bulik, C. M. (2019). Bidirectional relationship between eating disorders and autoimmune diseases. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(7), 803-812.
Breithaupt, L., Collins, B., McDowell, J. E., Miller, L. S., Thompson, J., & Fischer, S. (2017). The impact of acute stress on the neural processing of food cues in bulimia nervosa: Replication in two samples. Journal of abnormal psychology, 126(5), 540.