Comparing the ‘When’ and the ‘Where’ of Electrocortical Activity in Patients with Tourette Syndrome, Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Tourette Syndrome (TS), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRB) are three disorders that share many similarities in terms of phenomenology, neuroanatomy, and functionality. However, despite the literature pointing toward a plausible spectrum of these disorders, only a few studies have compared them. Studying the neurocognitive processes using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) offers the advantage of assessing brain activity with excellent temporal resolution. The ERP components can then reflect specific processes known to be potentially affected by these disorders. Our first goal is to characterize ‘when’ in the processing stream group differences are the most prominent. The second goal is to identify ‘where’ in the brain the group discrepancies could be. Methods: Participants with TS (n = 24), OCD (n = 18), and BFRB (n = 16) were matched to a control group (n = 59) and were recorded with 58 EEG electrodes during a visual counting oddball task. Three ERP components were extracted (i.e., P200, N200, and P300), and generating sources were modelized with Standardized Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography. Results: We showed no group differences for the P200 and N200 when controlling for anxiety and depressive symptoms, suggesting that the early cognitive processes reflected by these components are relatively intact in these populations. Our results also showed a decrease in the later anterior P300 oddball effect for the TS and OCD groups, whereas an intact oddball effect was observed for the BFRB group. Source localization analyses with sLORETA revealed activations in the lingual and middle occipital gyrus for the OCD group, distinguishing it from the other two clinical groups and the controls. Conclusions: It seems that both TS and OCD groups share deficits in anterior P300 activation but reflect distinct brain-generating source activations.