Saccadic abnormalities in psychotropic-naive obsessive-compulsive disorder without co-morbidity.
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.
van der Wee
Nic J
NJ
Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. n.j.a.van_der_wee@lumc.nl
Hardeman
Hans H
HH
Ramsey
Nick F
NF
Raemaekers
Mathijs
M
Van Megen
Harold J
HJ
Denys
Damiaan A
DA
Westenberg
Herman G
HG
Kahn
René S
RS
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
D011619:Psychotropic Drugs