Richard Gonzalez
Center Director, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research
Director, BioSocial Methods Collaborative, RCGD
Amos N Tversky Collegiate Professor, Psychology and Statistics, LSA
Professor of Marketing, Stephen M Ross School of Business
Professor of Integrative Systems and Design, College of Engineering
| E-mail: | Email Richard Gonzalez |
| Address: | Research Center for Group Dynamics Institute for Social Research University of Michigan 426 Thompson Street Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 |
| Phone: | 734-647-6785 |
Brain differences in how obsessive-compulsive patients process uncertainty compared to controls
Stern, E., Welsh, R., Gonzalez, R., Fitzgerald, K., Abelson, J., & Taylor, S. (2013). Subjective uncertainty and limbic hyperactivation in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Human Brain Mapping. 34, 1956-1970. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22038 (PDF
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Abstract
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is often associated with pathological uncertainty regarding whether an action has been performed correctly or whether a bad outcome will occur, leading to compulsive ‘‘evidence gathering’’ behaviors aimed at reducing uncertainty. The current study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural functioning in OCD patients and controls as subjective certainty was rated in response to sequential pieces of evi- dence for a decision. Uncertainty was experimentally manipulated so that some decisions were associ- ated with no ‘‘objective’’ uncertainty (all observed evidence pointed to one correct choice), whereas other decisions contained calculable but varying levels of objective uncertainty based on displayed probabilities. Results indicated that OCD patients differed from controls on decisions that contained no objective uncertainty, such that patients rated themselves as more uncertain. Patients also showed greater activation in a network of brain regions previously associated with internally-focused thought and valuation including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, parahippocampus, middle temporal cortex, as well as amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex/ventral anterior insula. In the patient group, a significantly greater number of positive intersubject correlations were found among several of these brain regions, suggesting that this network is more interconnected in patients. OCD patients did not differ from con- trols on decisions where task parameters led to uncertainty. These results indicate that OCD is associ- ated with hyperactivation in a network of limbic/paralimbic brain regions when making decisions, which may contribute to the greater subjective experience of doubt that characterizes the disorder.
