Animal models of OCD-relevant processes: an RDoC perspective

A Systematic Approach to Neuropsychiatric Intervention: Functional Neuroanatomy Underlying Symptom Domains as Targets for Treatment

An ever-growing population experiences a wide range of psychopathologies, and there is now more than ever a need for clear differential diagnoses between disorders. Furthering this need is the fact that many psychological, psychiatric, and neurological disorders have overlapping features. Functional neuroimaging has been shown to differentiate not only between the function of different brain structures but also between the roles of these structures in functional networks. The aim of this article is to aid in the goal of parsing out disorders on the basis of specific symptom domains by utilizing the most recent literature on functional networks. Current literature on the role of brain networks in relation to different psychopathological symptom domains is examined and corresponding circuit-based therapies that have been or may be used to treat them are discussed. Research on depression, obsession and compulsions, addiction, anxiety, and psychosis is reviewed. An understanding of networks and their specific dysfunctions opens the possibility of a new form of psychopathological treatment.

The prefrontal cortex and OCD

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a highly prevalent and severe neuropsychiatric disorder, with an incidence of 1.5-3% worldwide. However, despite the clear public health burden of OCD and relatively well-defined symptom criteria, effective treatments are still limited, spotlighting the need for investigation of the neural substrates of the disorder. Human neuroimaging studies have consistently highlighted abnormal activity patterns in prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions and connected circuits in OCD during both symptom provocation and performance of neurocognitive tasks. Because of recent technical advances, these findings can now be leveraged to develop novel targeted interventions. Here we will highlight current theories regarding the role of the prefrontal cortex in the generation of OCD symptoms, discuss ways in which this knowledge can be used to improve treatments for this often disabling illness, and lay out challenges in the field for future study.

Discriminant value of repetitive behaviors in families with autism spectrum disorder and obsessional compulsive disorder probands

Repetitive behaviors (RB) represent a wide spectrum of symptoms ranging from sensory-motor stereotypies to complex cognitive rituals, frequently dichotomized as low- and high-order sub-groups of symptoms. Even though these subgroups are considered as phenomenologically distinct in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), brain imaging and genetic studies suggest that they have common mechanisms and pathways. This discrepancy may be explained by the frequent intellectual disability reported in ASD, which blurs the RB expressivity. Given the high heritability of RB, that is, the diversity of symptoms expressed in the relatives are dependent on those expressed in their probands, we hypothesize that if RB expressed in ASD or OCD are two distinct entities, then the RB expressed in relatives will also reflect these two dimensions. We thus conduct a linear discriminant analysis on RB in both the relatives of probands with ASD and OCD and subjects from the general population (n = 1023). The discriminant analysis results in a classification of 81.1% of the controls (p < 10^-4 ), but poorly differentiated the ASD and OCD relatives (≈46%). The stepwise analysis reveals that five symptoms attributed to high-order RB and two related to low-order RB (including hypersensitivity) are the most discriminant. Our results support the idea that the difference of RB patterns in the relatives is mild compared with the distribution of symptoms in controls. Our findings reinforce the evidence of a common biological pattern of RB both in ASD and OCD but with minor differences, specific to each of these two neuro-developmental disorders. LAY SUMMARY: Repetitive behaviors (RB), a key symptom in the classification of both OCD and ASD, are phenomenologically considered as distinct in the two disorders, which is in contrast with brain imaging studies describing a common neural circuit. Intellectual disability, which is frequently associated with ASD, makes RB in ASD more difficult to understand as it affects the expression of the RB symptoms. To avoid this bias, we propose to consider the familial aggregation in ASD and OCD by exploring RB in the first-degree relatives of ASD and OCD. Our results highlight the existence of RB expressed in relatives compared to the general population, with a common pattern of symptoms in relatives of both ASD and OCD but also minor differences, specific to each of these two neuro-developmental disorders.