Excessive Switching in OCD and Paranoia Arises From Different Deficits in Belief-Updating

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Computational Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Obsessions and paranoia share cognitive inflexibility, complicating diagnosis.
• Existing research shows mixed findings on switching and perseveration in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate distinct behavioral patterns associated with obsessions and paranoia in a probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) task.
• To differentiate the computational mechanisms underlying cognitive inflexibility in these conditions.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of general population data using a probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) task.
• Application of Bayesian Gaussian graphical modeling and Hierarchical Gaussian Filter for computational analysis.

Main Results:

• Obsessions and paranoia exhibit distinct, though correlated, impacts on reversal learning.
• Paranoia is linked to impaired belief updating about uncertainty (volatility).
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with diminished belief updating about choice-outcome associations.

Conclusions:

• Cognitive inflexibility in paranoia and obsessions stems from different computational deficits.
• This research provides a computational framework to distinguish between obsessions and paranoia based on behavioral patterns.