Relationship between white matter alterations and contamination subgroup in obsessive compulsive disorder: A...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects 2%-3% of the global population.
• Brain region involvement in OCD is known, but structural changes may vary with symptom dimensions.
• Previous research correlated Y-BOCS scores with OCD, but specific symptom dimensions require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate white matter structural changes in specific obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptom dimensions.
• To identify brain regions specifically related to contamination symptoms in OCD by comparing a contamination subgroup to healthy controls.
• To evaluate structural alterations using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Main Methods:

• Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed on 30 OCD patients and 34 healthy controls.
• Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis was used to process the DTI data.
• Comparisons were made between the overall OCD group and controls, and specifically between the contamination subgroup and controls.

Main Results:

• Overall OCD patients showed decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right anterior thalamic radiation, right corticospinal tract, and forceps minor compared to controls.
• The contamination subgroup of OCD patients exhibited reduced FA specifically in the forceps minor region compared to healthy controls.
• Other OCD subgroups showed reduced FA in the right corticospinal tract and right anterior thalamic radiation.

Conclusions:

• The forceps minor plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of contamination-related behaviors in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
• Specific white matter tracts, including the right corticospinal tract and right anterior thalamic radiation, are altered in other OCD subgroups.
• This study highlights the importance of considering symptom dimensions when examining white matter integrity in OCD.