Disturbed monitoring and response inhibition in patients with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome and co-morbid obsessive compulsive disorder.
OBJECTIVE
Fronto-striatal dysfunction has been discussed as underlying symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS) with co-morbid Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This suggests possible impairments of executive functions in this disorder, which were therefore targeted in the present study.


METHODS
A comprehensive series of neuropsychological tests examining attention, memory and executive functions was performed in a group of 14 TS/OCD in co-occurrence with OCD patients and a matched control group.


RESULTS
While attentional and memory mechanisms were not altered, TS/OCS patients showed deficits in executive functions predominantly in the areas of response inhibition and action monitoring.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide further evidence for a substantial impairment of the frontal-striatal-thalamic-frontal circuit. We propose that the deficits in monitoring, error detection and response inhibition constitute the major impairment of TS/OCD patients in the cognitive domain.
Department of Clinical Neuropsychology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Box 4120, 39016 Magdeburg, Germany. sandra.mueller@nat.uni-magdeburg.de
Sandra Verena
SV
Müller
Sönke
S
Johannes
Berdieke
B
Wieringa
Axel
A
Weber
Kirsten
K
Müller-Vahl
Mike
M
Matzke
Hans
H
Kolbe
Reinhard
R
Dengler
Thomas F
TF
Münte
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D005879:Tourette Syndrome / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*