title: [Obsessive-compulsive disorders and structural cerebral alterations. Description of 3 cases].
abstract: Obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders have emerged as a differentiated entity, characterized with intrusive and obsessive thoughts or repetitive behaviors whose major syndrome would be the classical obsessive-compulsive disorder. In order to spread this concept among neurologists, we present three cases that can be considered as obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, in which structural cerebral lesions co-exist. Obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders share with obsessive-compulsive disorder several clinical and neurobiological characteristics as well as their therapeutic response. Nevertheless, obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders have a lesser positive familial history incidence and a later start than obsessive-compulsive disorder. Recent neurobiological studies using functional and structural neuroimaging in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder together with neuropsychological studies reveal the existence of defects in the following neural circuits: frontal-orbital-basal ganglia-thalamus-cortical and their limbic connections. In a similar manner as it occurs with obsessive-compulsive disorder, research on obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders will provide the pathophysiological basis of the obsessive-compulsive disorder in the dysfunctionality of the previously mentioned neurological circuits.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Psiquiatría, Consorci de l'Hospital de la Creu Roja, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona. Xavier.Cardona@chcr.scs.es
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cardona
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Avila
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000473:pathology*