Gray matter volumes in obsessive-compulsive disorder before and after fluoxetine or cognitive-behavior therapy: a randomized clinical trial.

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) are considered first-line treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little is known about their modulatory effects on regional brain morphology in OCD patients. We sought to document structural brain abnormalities in treatment-naive OCD patients and to determine the effects of pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral treatments on regional brain volumes.

The drug-naïve OCD patients imaging genetics, cognitive and treatment response study: methods and sample description.

Objective: To describe a protocol that was based on an integrative neurobiological model of scientific investigation to better understand the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder and to present the clinical and demographic characteristics of the sample.

Method: A standardized research protocol that combines different methods of investigation (genetics, neuropsychology, morphometric magnetic resonance imaging and molecular neuroimaging of the dopamine transporter) obtained before and after treatment of drug-naïve adult obsessive-compulsive disorder patients submitted to a sequentially allocated 12-week clinical trial with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (fluoxetine) and group cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Results: Fifty-two treatment-naïve obsessive-compulsive disorder patients entered the clinical trial (27 received fluoxetine and 25 received group cognitive-behavioral therapy).

Physiological responses to brain stimulation during limbic surgery: further evidence of anterior cingulate modulation of autonomic arousal.

Background: In view of conflicting neuroimaging results regarding autonomic-specific activity within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), we investigated autonomic responses to direct brain stimulation during stereotactic limbic surgery.

Methods: Skin conductance activity and accelerative heart rate responses to multi-voltage stimulation of the ACC (n = 7) and paralimbic subcaudate (n = 5) regions were recorded during bilateral anterior cingulotomy and bilateral subcaudate tractotomy (in patients that had previously received an adequate lesion in the ACC), respectively.

Results: Stimulations in both groups were accompanied by increased autonomic arousal.