Research
is being done all over the world in order to better understand the symptoms of
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Recently Peng et al. stated that there
might in fact be a difference in the amount of grey matter in the brain of a
patient with OCD. They performed a meta analysis of current research and came
to the conclusion that they are some differences. The following image was taken
from the article and best represent the differences (Peng et al, 2012).
Fig. 2. Regional differences in grey matter and FA
between OCD patients and healthy controls. (a) Blue indicates brain regions
with decreased grey matter regions in OCD patients compared with healthy
controls. (b) Red indicates the regions with increased grey matter in OCD
patients compared with healthy controls. (c) Blue indicates the regions with
decreased FA in OCD patients compared with healthy controls. (d) Red indicates
the regions with increased FA in OCD patients compared with healthy controls.
(For interpretation of the references to color in the figure caption, the
reader is referred to the web version of the article.)
So as
you can see OCD patients have smaller amunts of grey matter in multiple areas
including medial frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex and larger volumes
in the following areas: lenticular nucleus, caudate nucleus and a small region
in the right superior parietal lobule (Peng et al, 2012).
In
order to gain a better understanding of what all this means I did some further
research finding an article linking this to mood disorders including
depression. Drevets et al discovered that alterations to grey matter volumes
within the brain led to malfunctions within the circuit and this led to depressive
moods (Drevets et al, 2008).
All
of this is new and exciting research on the way to a cure for OCD!
T
Drevets, W. C., Price, J. L., & Furey, M. L. (2008). Brain
structural and functional
abnormalities in mood disorders: implications for neurocircuitry
models of depression. Brain Structure and Function, 213(1),
93-118.
Peng, Z., Lui, S. S., Cheung, E. F., Jin, Z., Miao, G., Jing,
J., & Chan, R. C. (2012). Brain
structural abnormalities in
obsessive-compulsive disorder: Converging evidence from white matter and grey
matter. Asian Journal of Psychiatry.
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