Open access. Anorexia nervosa (AN) is among the most pernicious of psychiatric disorders, demonstrating a mortality rate six times greater than the general population, and a crude mortality rate of 5–6% [1]. Even in non-lethal presentations, AN frequently runs a chronic and relapsing illness course, which imparts multi-systemic organ damage, including cardiac abnormalities, structural and functional brain impairment, and bone disease [2]. Alongside these grave medical sequelae, treatment outcomes in AN are universally modest. End-of-treatment remission rates in adolescent AN, the most common period of illness onset, are reported to range from 23 to 33% [3, 4], of which approximately one third remain in remission at four-year follow-up [5], whereas adult presentations are characterized by end-of-treatment remission rates ranging from 0 to 25% [6]. The urgent need for novel interventions for AN, as well as augmentations to the potency of existing treatment models, cannot be disputed.