Background
Neuroimaging studies of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients point to deficits
in cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits that might include changes in white matter.
The contribution of environmental and genetic factors to the various OCD-related changes
in brain structures remains to be established.
Methods
White matter structures were analyzed in 140 subjects with both diffusion tensor imaging
and voxel-based morphometry. We studied 20 monozygotic twin pairs discordant for obsessive-compulsive
symptoms (OCS) to detect the effects of environmental risk factors for obsessive-compulsive
(OC) symptomatology. Furthermore, we compared 28 monozygotic twin pairs concordant
for low OCS scores with 23 twin pairs concordant for high OCS scores to detect the
effects of genetic risk factors for OC symptomatology.
Results
Discordant pair analysis showed that the environmental risk was associated with an
increase in dorsolateral-prefrontal white matter. Analysis of concordant pairs showed
that the genetic risk was associated with a decrease in inferior frontal white matter.
Various white matter tracts showed opposite effects of environmental and genetic risk
factors (e.g., right medial frontal, left parietal, and right middle temporal), illustrating
the need for designs that separate these classes of risk factors.
Conclusions
Different white matter regions were affected by environmental and genetic risk factors
for OC symptomatology, but both classes of risk factors might, in aggregate, create
an imbalance between the indirect loop of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical network
(to the dorsolateral-prefrontal region)—important for inhibition and switching between
behaviors—and the direct loop (involving the inferior frontal region) that contributes
to the initiation and continuation of behaviors.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 09, 2011
Accepted:
March 23,
2011
Received in revised form:
March 22,
2011
Received:
October 21,
2010
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
