title: Saccadic abnormalities in psychotropic-naive obsessive-compulsive disorder without co-morbidity.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oculomotor studies have found saccadic abnormalities in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), lending support for models postulating a central role for inhibition in OCD. Saccadic abnormalities in OCD may also be potential candidates for a biological marker, important for more endophenotype-oriented research. Saccadic abnormalities have not been examined in psychotropic-naive patients with OCD without co-morbidity.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared the error rates and latencies of 14 carefully selected adult psychotropic-naive patients with OCD with no co-morbid diagnosis and 14 pairwise matched healthy controls on a fixation task, on a prosaccade task and on an antisaccade task.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with OCD showed normal error rates on all tasks, but latencies on the antisaccade task were significantly increased.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that patients with OCD have no gross impairment of oculomotor inhibitory capacities, but may have a disturbed capacity to deliberately initiate a saccade to an imagined target.
authors.affiliation: Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. n.j.a.van_der_wee@lumc.nl
authors.forename: Nic J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: van der Wee
authors.forename: Hans H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Hardeman
authors.forename: Nick F
authors.initials: NF
authors.lastname: Ramsey
authors.forename: Mathijs
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Raemaekers
authors.forename: Harold J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Van Megen
authors.forename: Damiaan A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Denys
authors.forename: Herman G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Westenberg
authors.forename: René S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Kahn
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003710:Demography; D004585:Electrooculography; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D015840:Oculomotor Nerve Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs