Invasive procedures targeting aLIC can help in treating treatment-refractory OCD. This study understands how the aLIC streamlines are affected in healthy controls and OCD individuals. The study also aims to understand the streamlines that have a relationship with the post-capsulotomy improvement.
The researchers used diffusion-weighted MRI to compare the microstructure of white matter in individuals with OCD and healthy controls. The study had a hundred subjects, with forty women, with an average age of 31.8 years. They calculated the streamline counts and FA for each subject. The correlation between clinical outcomes and tractography measures were evaluated in individuals with OCD. The clinical outcomes included depression, obsessive-compulsive, and anxiety scores six months after the surgery. This evaluation was done only in 41 OCD patients.
Healthy controls had higher aLIC FA than OCD individuals across multiple regions. The OCD individuals with higher streamline counts had a greater post-capsulotomy obsessive-compulsive improvement. Those with greater dorsale cingulate-thalamic streamline count were more likely to have surgical outcomes with medicines for anxiety and depression improvements.
The study proves the role of aLIC in obsessive-compulsive disorder. This relationship could potentially help in targeting optimized outcomes in OCD treatments.
Ref: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/17/jnnp-2020-323062
