Neurological and neuropsychological studies of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

We studied 18 DSM-III diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder patients with the Halstead-Reitan Battery (HRB), EEGs, and CT scans. Results for the group as a whole were within the normal range; however two patients had abnormal EEGs and four showed average impairment ratings on the HRB high enough to suggest organic deficits. More than half of the subjects were impaired on the tactual performance test from the HRB suggesting a possible deficit in spatial perception. These data, however, do not define a single neuropsychological deficit nor do they replicate an earlier report of left frontal lobe dysfunction in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Cerebral CT scans in ten patients, including all those with EEG and average impairment rating abnormalities, showed VBR, asymmetry, and sulcal prominence measures indistinguishable from a matched group of nonpsychiatric control subjects.