Search by morphometric brain alterations correlated with the presence or absence of sensory phenomena in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder

• Grant number: 13/22536-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2014
• End date: February 28, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Psychiatry
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Queiroz Hoexter
• Grantee: Rachel Oliveira de Assis
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a psychiatric chronic disease and potentially disabling. Nowadays the disorder is seen as a single nosological entity, but manifests itself differently in the clinic and may vary over time and among different patients. This phenotypic heterogeneity raise difficulties in the determination of risk genes, understanding the natural history of the disease, the neural substrates involved and the best prediction of therapeutic response. The investigation of subgroups composed of patients with more homogeneous clinical presentations can help in better understanding the disorder and the etiological mechanisms behind it. A subgroup of patients with OCD may be characterized according to the presence of sensory phenomena. These phenomena are defined as any non-cognitive process associated with repetitive behavior in patients with OCD. Patients with sensory phenomena describe be affected by physical sensations such as discomfort in the joints , sensations of discomfort related to touch, sight and hearing, incompleteness , as well as the perception that something is not right , what motivates the realization of certain compulsion. Following this trend, the goals of this study are: 1) to investigate whether there are morphometric brain differences in OCD patients with and without sensory phenomena and 2) to investigate whether severity of these phenomena correlates with these changes. To this end, OCD patients underwent structural MRI scans of the head and scales were evaluated by investigating the presence and severity of sensory phenomena.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

SUBIRA, MARTA; SATO, JOAO R.; ALONSO, PINO; DO ROSARIO, MARIA C.; SEGALAS, CINTO; BATISTUZZO, MARCELO C.; REAL, EVA; LOPES, ANTONIO C.; CERRILLO, ESTER; DINIZ, JULIANA B.; et al. Brain structural correlates of sensory phenomena in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY & NEUROSCIENCE, v. 40, n. 4, p. 232-240, JUL 2015. (11/21357-9, 13/00506-1, 11/00968-0, 13/22536-0, 13/10498-6)