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Related Experiment Videos

Frontal-striatal dysfunction during planning in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Odile A van den Heuvel1, Dick J Veltman, Henk J Groenewegen

  • 1Departments of Psychiatry, Anatomy, and Radiology and Outpatient Clinic for Anxiety Disorders, GGZ Buitenamstel, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Archives of General Psychiatry
|March 9, 2005
PubMed
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Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is linked to impaired planning abilities due to reduced frontal-striatal brain activity. This executive dysfunction is a core feature of OCD, independent of anxiety or symptom severity.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psychiatry

Background:

  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves dysfunction in frontal-striatal brain circuits, particularly the orbitofrontal-striatal pathways.
  • Patients with OCD exhibit deficits in visuospatial tasks and executive functions, including planning.
  • Previous research suggests a link between frontal-striatal circuitry and OCD pathophysiology.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether dorsal prefrontal-striatal dysfunction underlies planning impairments in individuals with OCD.
  • To explore the neural mechanisms associated with planning deficits in OCD.

Main Methods:

  • A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study using a parametric, self-paced, pseudorandomized event-related version of the Tower of London task.

Related Experiment Videos

  • The study included 22 medication-free patients with OCD and 22 healthy control subjects.
  • The task design allowed for flexible responding and post hoc classification of correct responses to compare groups with potential performance differences.

    • Main Results:

    • Patients with OCD demonstrated significant planning impairments compared to healthy controls.
    • fMRI revealed decreased frontal-striatal responsiveness in OCD patients during planning, primarily in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and caudate nucleus.
    • OCD patients exhibited increased activation in brain regions associated with performance monitoring and short-term memory, such as the anterior cingulate, ventrolateral prefrontal, and parahippocampal cortices, suggesting compensatory mechanisms.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings support the hypothesis that reduced dorsal prefrontal-striatal responsiveness is associated with impaired planning capacity in OCD.
    • The observed frontal-striatal dysfunction in OCD is independent of state anxiety and disease symptom severity.
    • Executive impairment, specifically in planning, is concluded to be a core feature of OCD.