Neuroimaging studies in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder in China

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common mental disorder of uncertain etiology. Neuroimaging studies of patients with OCD in China started to appear in the late 1990s, identifying structural abnormalities in the gray matter and white matter of the prefrontal lobe, the corpus striatum, and the thalamus. Studies using positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) have found increased metabolism and activation in these brain regions that are correlated with the duration, severity and cognitive symptoms of OCD. After surgery for OCD the activation in these target areas decreases. These results in China are similar to those presented in previous neuroimaging studies, including several meta-analyses from other countries.