Neuropsychological functioning in early- and late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Significant relationships have been noted between age of onset and demographics, clinical characteristics, and cerebral metabolic activity in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The authors investigated whether patients with early (N=21) and late (N=17) onset OCD differ with respect to neuropsychological functioning. Results revealed that the late onset OCD group obtained poorer scores on measures of executive function and auditory attention than the early onset group.

Organizational strategy use in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been demonstrated to be less likely to use spontaneously generated organizational strategies during verbal episodic memory and visuoconstruction tasks. However, whether this organizational deficit is generalizable to other areas of cognitive functioning has not been established. In the present study, we assessed whether adults with OCD are less likely to spontaneously generate organizational strategies during performance of an executive function test, the Self-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT).

Procedural and declarative memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been associated with frontostriatal abnormality. This has led to the hypothesis that the disorder is characterized by abnormality of procedural memory. However, evidence for either procedural or declarative memory disturbance has been mixed, and few studies have directly assessed both of these forms of memory in the same patient group.

ERP study of pre-attentive auditory processing in treatment-refractory schizophrenia.

Event-related potential (ERP) studies have demonstrated impaired auditory sensory processing in patients with schizophrenia, as reflected in abnormal mismatch negativity (MMN). We sought to extend this finding by evaluating MMN in 13 treatment-refractory patients with schizophrenia, and 14 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Subjects responded to infrequent visual stimulation while ignoring binaurally presented auditory tones.

Speed and accuracy on tests of executive function in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Slowness in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been attributed to intrusive thoughts or meticulousness. Recent research suggests that slowness in OCD may be particularly evident on tests of executive function subserved by frontostriatal circuitry. In the present study, the speed and accuracy of responding on neuropsychological tests of executive functions and psychomotor speed were investigated in 27 non-depressed, unmedicated adults with OCD and 27 healthy controls.