Distinct Response Inhibition Patterns in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Patients and Pathological Gamblers

Abstract

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and pathological gambling (PG) are common disorders. The cognitive models of OCD and PG focus on abnormalities in response inhibition. Although, these functions have been studied in different PG and OCD samples, no study has compared the response inhibition in both.Methods: Medication-naïve OCD (n = 61) and PG subjects (n = 109) and healthy controls (n = 131) performed CPT and Go/NoGo tasks.Results: Compared to healthy controls (HC), PG and OCD groups underperformed on speed and exhibited larger time variability on the CPT and Go/NoGo task. Only in OCD patients, a positive correlation between omission errors and response time (RT) was observed in the CPT. At the Go/NoGo task, a negative correlation between false alarms and RT (a fast-errors trade-off) was significant only in the PG group. The HC group had greater sensitivity values (d') than the OCD and PG groups in the Go/NoGo task. The PG group displayed lower d' values and more conservative response criterion in the CPT. In addition, only the OCD group expressed a high switching cost compared to both the PG and HC groups in terms of the RT and d' values.Conclusions: Both the PG and OCD groups demonstrated impaired response inhibition compared to the HC group. On several measures, the OCD and PG groups showed comparable impairments, and in others these were distinct. Thus, it appears that distinct neurocognitive patterns are involved in performance of the CPT and the Go/NoGo tasks among OCD and PG subjects whose cognitive status is currently under intensive investigation.

Considering Motor Excitability During Action Preparation in Gambling Disorder: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

“…This matter has been especially addressed in gambling disorder (GD), which shares considerable phenomenological parallels with substance addiction, including difficulties to control the urge to gamble despite awareness of its negative impact, unsuccessful attempts to cut back, or the emergence of craving in front of gambling-related cues (31). In particular, an increasing body of literature has highlighted that patients suffering from GD (GDPs) have higher levels of impulsivity and lower response inhibition abilities than control subjects (32)(33)(34). Moreover, several studies have reported an interesting association between those alterations and gambling severity (35)(36)(37).…”

Are electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition linked to impulsivity and compulsivity? A machine‐learning analysis of a Go/Nogo task

“…As OCD is defined by obsessive and compulsive symptomatology, individuals with OCD score generally score higher on the OCI‐R (Abramovitch et al, 2020). Further, deficits in behavioral response inhibition have been found (Berlin & Lee, 2018; Hagland et al, 2021; Kertzman et al, 2018), as well as alterations in Nogo ERP signals (Koorenhof & Dommett, 2019) and higher BIS‐11 scores predicted by symptom severity (Frydman et al, 2020). Similar changes have been found for other disorders often associated with impulsivity and/or compulsivity such as substance use (Wilcox et al, 2014), behavioral addictions (Kertzman et al, 2018; Kim et al, 2017), borderline personality disorder (Ruchsow, Groen, Kiefer, Buchheim, et al, 2008), and schizophrenia (Yu et al, 2019).…”

“…Further, deficits in behavioral response inhibition have been found (Berlin & Lee, 2018; Hagland et al, 2021; Kertzman et al, 2018), as well as alterations in Nogo ERP signals (Koorenhof & Dommett, 2019) and higher BIS‐11 scores predicted by symptom severity (Frydman et al, 2020). Similar changes have been found for other disorders often associated with impulsivity and/or compulsivity such as substance use (Wilcox et al, 2014), behavioral addictions (Kertzman et al, 2018; Kim et al, 2017), borderline personality disorder (Ruchsow, Groen, Kiefer, Buchheim, et al, 2008), and schizophrenia (Yu et al, 2019). Again, other studies have found elevated scores on varying impulsivity or compulsivity measures in these clinical groups compared to our sample (Fernandez‐Egea et al, 2018; Kaladjian et al, 2011; Kim et al, 2018; Verdejo‐García et al, 2007; Whiteside et al, 2005).…”

“…As for compulsivity, higher scores are related to more Nogo commission errors in subclinical samples (Abramovitch et al, 2015;Sánchez-Kuhn et al, 2017). However, most findings are reported in relation to OCD, where patients are found to show longer reaction times (Kertzman et al, 2018), lower task performance (Endrass & Ullsperger, 2014;Rosa-Alcázar et al, 2020), and altered N2 and P3 signals (Koorenhof & Dommett, 2019) in Go/ Nogo paradigms. Similarly, performance on SST appears to be related to OCD (Berlin & Lee, 2018) and its symptom scores (Hagland et al, 2021;Mar et al, 2021;McLaughlin et al, 2016;Sohn et al, 2014).…”

Trans-ancestry meta-analysis of genome wide association studies of inhibitory control

“…Broadly, these executive functions can be conceptualised as falling into three main categoriescognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control (1). Whereas EFs are linked to a range of positive outcomes such as educational attainment (2), quality of life (3,4) and general health-related behaviours (5), impairments in these cognitive processes are associated with risk for a number of psychiatric disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (6)(7)(8), autism spectrum disorder (9) as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (10)(11)(12) and schizophrenia (13,14).…”