Volumetric investigation of the frontal-subcortical circuitry in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Journal
- J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci
- Vol
- 16(3)
- Page
- 342-349
- Year
- 2004
- Link
- https://doi.org/10.1176/jnp.16.3.342 141회 연결
The pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is thought to involve disturbance of the frontal-subcortical circuitry. To investigate the morphological characteristics of this circuitry, we examined the volume of the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, thalamus, caudate, and the putamen in 36 age- and sex-matched OCD patients and normal control subjects using three-dimensional magnetic resonance (MR) brain imaging. The left orbitofrontal volumes were found to be significantly smaller in the OCD patients and showed significant negative correlations with obsessive-compulsive symptom severity. These findings suggest that a structural abnormality of this brain region is implicated in the pathophysiology of OCD.