The story of memory and executive functions in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a case-control study

Neuropsychological findings in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are mainly clustered around the role of memory and executive functions. However, outcomes vary across different OCD populations. In addition, the extent to which each of these factors can distinguish patients with OCD (PwOCD) from healthy individuals remains uncertain and attracts great attention. The present study aims to investigate the above issues.

This was a cross-sectional study of 182 individuals (90 PwOCD and 92 matched healthy controls). After screening for inclusion and exclusion criteria, the participants were administered neuropsychological tests including, the Wechsler Memory Scale-III (WMS-III), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT). Data were analyzed to test the study hypotheses using comparison of means and regression analysis methods.

The results showed that PwOCD had poorer performance than the control group in Immediate Memory, General Memory, and Working Memory and also according to response inhibition indexes. The results also showed that General Memory and Reaction Time2 from the SCWT index could be predictive variables for discriminating between PwOCD and controls.

The findings of this study support the prior assumptions that PwOCD would have impaired memory dimensions and response inhibition, but did not support worse set-shifting performance. We also present an initial model for the predictive role of these neuropsychological variables in discriminating OCD from healthy individuals and increasing diagnostic accuracy.