When repetitive mental sets increase cognitive flexibility in adolescent obsessive–compulsive disorder

Abstract

The study shows that cognitive flexibility can be better in OCD than controls. This may be the case in situations where superior abilities in the reactivation of repeating mental sets and difficulties to process new ones coincide. This may be accomplished by intensified inhibitory control mechanisms. The results challenge the view on OCD, since OCD is not generally associated with cognitive inflexibility.

The neurophysiological basis of developmental changes during sequential cognitive flexibility between adolescents and adults

“…This region is wellknown to play a central role in inhibitory control processes (e.g., Aron, Monsell, Sahakian, & Robbins, 2004;Bodmer & Beste, 2017;Dippel & Beste, 2015;Stock, Popescu, Neuhaus, & Beste, 2016) and has previously been shown to be associated with inhibitory gating processes reflected by the P1 during backward inhibition (Wolff et al, 2018). The larger P1 in the nth trial of the BI compared with the BASE condition therefore suggests that the suppression of the inhibitory effect of the n-1 trial on the n-2 trial is stronger in the BI condition.…”

“…The same electrode site showing a P1 effect in backward inhibition has recently been used (Wolff et al, 2018 For the target N2 (Figure 3c), the mixed effects ANOVA revealed no significant main or interaction effects (all F < 1.56, p > .219). The mixed effects ANOVA for the target P3 ( Figure 3d) To summarize, the analysis of standard ERP components did not reveal interactive effects between BI/BASE condition and group.…”

“…This was followed by an independent component analysis needs to be stressed that the CSD transformation was used in other studies using the same task and therefore fosters comparability across studies and examined populations (Wolff et al, 2018;Zhang, Stock, & Beste, 2016a;Zhang, Stock, Fischer, et al, 2016b). This was followed by an independent component analysis needs to be stressed that the CSD transformation was used in other studies using the same task and therefore fosters comparability across studies and examined populations (Wolff et al, 2018;Zhang, Stock, & Beste, 2016a;Zhang, Stock, Fischer, et al, 2016b).…”

“…Therefore, and to keep the data comparable to other published studies using that paradigm (Wolff et al, 2018;Zhang, Stock, & Beste, 2016a;Zhang, Stock, Fischer, et al, 2016b), those triplets were not included in the data analysis. This is all the more the case because intra-individual variability of behavioral and EEG data is an issue in developmental studies (refer introduction section).…”

“…Notably, these processes have recently been shown to be important during backward inhibition (Wolff, Buse, Tost, Roessner, & Beste, 2017;Wolff, Giller, Buse, Roessner, & Beste, 2018). Recent work suggesting that the suppression of the no longer needed, competing task is relevant during backward inhibition accounted for modulations in the P1 ERP component (Wolff et al, , 2018 reflecting inhibitory gating mechanisms which control the access to a previous task sets/representations (Klimesch, 2011). The knowledge system is thought to be a storage system, which includes procedural and implicit-perceptual knowledge (Klimesch, 2011;Petruo, Stock, Münchau, & Beste, 2016) important during cognitive flexibility .…”