The Family Study Of Cognitive Functions In Obsessive-compulsive Disorder

Objective (1) To explore the impairments of cognitive functions in patients with OCD and first-degree relatives, examined by neuropsychologic tests; (2) To explore whether the impairments of cognitive functions in OCD have familial aggregation and whether the impairment of cognitive functions are endophenotype of predisposing genes in OCD , by comparing patients and first-degree relatives with normal controls.Method 40 first-episode or free-treatment OCD patients, 48 first-degree relatives, 40 patients normal controls and 47 relatives normal controls were assessed by using neuropsychological tests which include the information, arithmetic,digital symbol, digit span, block design, logical memory, visual memory, Stroop test, Trail Making Test(A,B), verbal fluency, tower of HANOI and modified version of Wisconsin Card Sorting Test; Clinical characteristics and severity in OCD patients were evaluated by YBOCS,HAMD,HAMA.Results 1. Compared with normal controls, patients with OCD have impairments of neurocognitive functions, including memory, attention and execution function. Patients with OCD have significant difference in immediately logical memory (PO.01) , delayed logical memory (P<0.01) , immediately visual memory (PO.01) , delayed visual memory (PO.01) , the number to correct in STROOP-C (P<0.01 X TMT-B (PO.05 \ planning timeofTOH (PO.05) and operating time of TOH (PO.01) ;2. The relatives of patients with OCD have significant difference in immediately logical memory (PO.05) , delayed logical memory (PO.01) , immediately visual memory (PO.05) , delayed visual memory (PO.05) , the correct number in STROOP-CW (PO.05) , and operating time of TOH(PO.05) .3. Compared with the relatives, patients have higher performance in Digital Symbol, Digital Span(forward and backward) -, Block Design, the correct number in STROOP-C, the time of STROOP-C and STROOP-CW(PO.05) ;4. Both patients with OCD and their first-degree relatives have more poor performance in immediately logical memory, delayed logical memory, immediately visual memory, delayed visual memory, and operating time of TOH than normal controls ,while both two groups have higher scores in Digital Span(forward and backward) than normal controls.Conclusion: 1. Patients with OCD have impairments in verbal memory,visual memory, set-shifting ability, planning and operating ability;2. First-degree relatives of OCD patients have the impairments of cognitivefunctions, including verbal memory, visual memory, space perception and working memory;3. Both patients with OCD and their first-degree relatives have the impairments in verbal memory, visual memory, space perception and working memory,and the impairments have the characteristics of familial aggregation, suggesting these maybe be neuropsychological indicators of hereditary susceptibility in OCD. Besides these, patients with OCD have the impairments of cognitive functions including set-shifting ability and planning ablitity, suggesting these impairments relate to the psychopathological course in OCD.