Insula volume in patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder and relationship with the clinical variabilities

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a prevalent and disabled disorder which is categorized in Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth edition. Recently, in neuroimaging studies, some abnormalities that may be related to the signs and symptoms of the disease have been shown. In this study; it has been aimed to investigate the morphometric alterations of insula in OCD patients for understanding the pathophysiology. The study comprised 20 OCD patients who had applied to Fırat University Hospital Department of Psychiatry as out- or in- patients and had been diagnosed with OCD according to the criteria of DSM-IV and 13 healthy controls. The patients were administered the sociodemographical data form, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression(HAM-D) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A), Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale(Y-BOCS) and SCID. The volumetric measurement of insula was performed on patients and control group by using MRI. For the left and right insula volumes there were no differences between the patients and healthy controls. This can be considered insula has a relationship with both pathophysiology and clinical course of the disease. Our study suggested that the investigations which use together the imaging technique that examine the functional qualifications of this area and the tests research the cognitive functions, make us to provide to reach more important and effective results. Key Words: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Volume, Insula, MRI