OCD is not a sign of anxiety but the consequence of a dysfunction in certain areas of the brain. These findings also apply to other compulsive disorders.
Check the locks, wash your hands several times, avoid certain trips… Obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) manifest themselves in various ways and are not well known. For several years, a team from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) has been working to better identify the mechanisms and causes of this psychiatric disorder. First considered as anxieties, OCDs are now described as a psychiatric disorder with a cerebral manifestation. Researchers describe their origin in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry.
37 patients with OCD and 33 healthy patients took part in this study. All of them had scans as they completed a simple task, four times: depressing a pedal to avoid receiving a slight electric shock to the wrist. The former had a harder time quitting than the latter. On scans, this difficulty is observed by hyperactivity of the caudate nucleus, a brain region involved in the control of habits. This is the first time that a team has shown that the repetition of movements increases the activity of this basal ganglion and therefore that the compulsions are caused by the habit control system.
Treat before habits take root
Impulsive behaviors take root over time, the study authors say, and compulsions gradually take on more importance than intentions. The results suggest that treating early would make it easier to eradicate signs of the pulse. “Certain customs make our life easier, such as automatically brewing coffee in the morning; others go too far and take control of our lives in a much more insidious way, shaping our preferences, our beliefs and – in the case of OCD – our fears, ”insists Prof. Robbins. “Such conditions, when repetitive and maladaptive habits dominate our behavior, are the most difficult to treat, with cognitive behavioral therapy or medication. “
The other interest of this work is that it does not concern only OCDs, but many psychological disorders which manifest themselves by compulsions. “A range of human behaviors are seen as examples of impulsivity, such as drug or alcohol abuse or binge eating. These behaviors have in common the loss of control, ”explains Dr. Claire Gillan. The impulses are therefore the result of poor communication between several regions of the brain… and not the response to stimuli.
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