Comparing children with obsessive-compulsive disorder and controls with neuropsychological tests and brain magnetic resonance spectroscopy results

It is believed that neuropsychological-cognitive deficits and biochemical alterations in different brain regions are involved in the etiology of OCD in children and adolescents. These two important etiological factors are aimed to be investigated in this study. Children and adolescents with OCD (n:15) and case matched healthy controls (n:15) were recruited for the study. After the detailed clinical and neuropsychological evaluation, all subjects went under the MRS procedure. In the neuropsychological assesment it was observed that children and adolescents with OCD had impairments in visuo-spatial functioning, visual scanning and perception, organising strategies. Interestingly pediatric OCD subjects had strengths in long term (delayed recall) verbal memory. Despite the similar average sum IO's in the two groups, OCD subjects had lower performance IQ's and higher verbal IQ's. According to the MRS results, there had been any difference between OCD and control subjects in medial talamic region, which has been implicated in previous pediatric OCD-MRS studies. Between the two groups significant differences had been observed in orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate cortex, caudat and lenticular nucleus, areas which are important in the pathophysiology of OCD. It was found interesting that firstly there had been a significant metabolic difference in right occipital grey matter between the two groups and secondly there had been a negative correlation between OCD duration and insula metabolic ratios. These brain regions were not implicated in OCD-MRS studies previously. It was observed that there had been various relations between cognitive functions different metabolic ratios in different brain regions in the two groups.