Are neuropsychological deficits trait markers in OCD?

Neuropsychological impairments are independent of illness severity, thus suggesting that the neuropsychological deficits are trait markers of the disease. In addition, these deficits are seen in first-degree relatives of individuals with OCD.

What brain chemical is affected by medication for OCD?

Glutamate in OCD Existing medications for OCD target two neurotransmitters (brain chemicals): serotonin and dopamine. However, there has been substantial interest over the last eight years in the potential involvement of another neurotransmitter, glutamate, in OCD.

What are the main cognitive deficits in OCD?

Results: Patients with OCD were significantly impaired in tasks that measured visuospatial memory, executive function, verbal memory and verbal fluency, whereas auditory attention was preserved in these individuals. The largest effect size was found in the ability to recall complex visual stimuli.

Does OCD affect decision making?

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) produces profound morbidity. Difficulties with decision-making and intolerance of uncertainty are prominent clinical features in many patients.

Which parts of the brain are affected by OCD?

Three brain areas – the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the head of the caudate nucleus – have been consistently implicated in a large number of resting, symptom provocation, and pre/post-treatment studies of adults with OCD.

Does Neuropsych testing test for OCD?

A vast body of literature indicates that OCD is associated with underperformance on neuropsychological tests across multiple domains.

Is dopamine high or low in OCD?

Treatment with deep brain stimulation is effective in OCD, and response correlates with increased dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Combined this evidence suggests that OCD may be associated with both increased and decreased dopamine signaling, or that a unidirectional model may not be adequate.

Is OCD a serotonin deficiency?

Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, is an anxiety disorder which, like many anxiety disorders, is marked by low levels of serotonin. Serotonin, a type of neurotransmitter, has a variety of functions that make a deficiency a serious and anxiety producing issue.

Can OCD cause executive dysfunction?

It is thought that OCD is related to a dysfunction in prefrontal cortex and subcortical brain circuits and that this dysfunction impairs an executive function characteristic, the ability of set-shifting (6).

Is OCD a cognitive disability?

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with cognitive dysfunction. Although there are several studies focused on the neurobiology of OCD, little is known about the biological correlates of the cognitive deficit linked to this disorder.

Can OCD cause procrastination?

Associated with OCD are symptoms that feed directly into procrastination: repetitive behavior, compulsive avoidance, and anxiety about the future. Understanding OCD can help us recognize and escape the cycle of procrastination — whether or not one has the disorder.

Is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) a neuropsychological disorder?

Neuropsychological deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been encouraged by brain imaging studies suggesting a putative fron to- striatial biological basis of the condition.

What are the cognitive symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Patients with OCD also exhibit performance deficits on tests of visual spatial memory and verbal memory[11,19] but they did not demonstrate impaired performance on all the memory functions.[20]

What is the pathophysiology of memory impairment in obsessive-compulsive disorder?

The memory (including immediate recall and new learning) dysfunction in OCD seems to be largely mediated by organisational deficits during the encoding phase that in turn makes recall more difficult. Therefore, it can be argued that the memory impairment in OCD might be due to the failure of organisational strategies.

What causes visual and verbal memory problems in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

One may speculate that visual retention and verbal memory problems (immediate nonverbal memory) in OCD appear only when patients have an active illness and failure in organizational strategies that mediate the recall process may ultimately lead to deficits in visual retention and verbal memory.[8]