Original articleLow level of dopaminergic D2 receptor binding in obsessive-compulsive disorder
Section snippets
Methods and materials
The subjects in this study were 10 patients with OCD and 10 healthy control subjects, who gave written informed consent for participation in this study, which had been approved by the University of Utrecht Medical Ethical Review committee (Utrecht, The Netherlands). The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used to ascertain that patients met DSM-IV criteria for the primary OCD diagnosis and that healthy control subjects were free of psychiatric diagnoses (Sheehan et al 1998). All
Study sample
Clinical characteristics of OCD patients and dopamine D2 receptor phenotypes are shown in Table 1. Patients had a Y-BOCS score (mean ± SD) of 25.9 ± 6.5 and a HAM-D score of 12.3 ± 4.5. Three of 10 patients had a first-degree relative with OCD (patients 1, 4, and 5), two had a first-degree relative with major depressive disorder (patients 3 and 9), and five had no familial psychiatric morbidity. Except for two patients, who have had a comorbid single episode of major depressive disorder
Discussion
The major finding of this study is that patients with OCD have lower dopamine D2 binding ratios in the left caudate nucleus relative to control subjects. We also observed lower D2 binding ratios in and a reduced volume of the left caudate nucleus compared with the right caudate nucleus in patients with OCD. Although our results should be considered preliminary owing to the small sample size, this report is the first to demonstrate in vivo dopamine D2 changes in patients with OCD.
It is not
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