Aberrant ventral striatal responses during incentive processing in unmedicated patients with obsessive-compulsive
1Clinical Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Neuroscience Institute, SNU-MRC, Seoul, South Korea.
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica
|December 24, 2010
Summary
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is linked to altered brain responses to rewards and losses. Unmedicated patients with OCD show heightened ventral striatal activity, particularly correlating with symptom severity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves control and reward pathway dysfunction.
- Limited neuroimaging research has explored reward processing in OCD.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neural responses during incentive processing in unmedicated patients with OCD.
- To examine the relationship between brain activity, reward processing, and symptom severity in OCD.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used.
- Twenty unmedicated OCD patients and 20 healthy controls performed a modified monetary incentive delay task.
Main Results:
- OCD patients exhibited increased ventral striatal activation during loss outcomes compared to controls.
- Ventral striatal activation positively correlated with OCD symptom severity.
- OCD patients showed altered frontostriatal and prefrontal/parietal cortex activity during anticipation of gains and losses.
Conclusions:
- Findings suggest altered incentive processing in unmedicated OCD.
- Evidence points to heightened sensitivity to negative stimuli and ventral striatum dysfunction in OCD.
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