scholarly journals The Error-Related Negativity (ERN) in Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A Call for Further Investigation of Task Parameters in the Flanker Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilianne M. Gloe ◽  
Courtney C. Louis
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Task Parameters

scholarly journals Atypical action updating in a dynamic environment associated with adolescent obsessive-compulsive disorder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleya A Aziz Marzuki ◽  
Matilde Vaghi ◽  
Anna Conway-Morris ◽  
Muzaffer Kaser ◽  
Akeem Sule ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Young Patients ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Cognitive Information ◽  
Confidence Ratings

Background Computational research had determined that adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) display heightened action updating in response to noise in the environment and neglect meta-cognitive information (such as confidence) when making decisions. These features are proposed to underlie patients compulsions despite knowledge they are irrational. Nonetheless, it is unclear whether this extends to adolescents with OCD as research in this population is lacking. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the interplay between action and confidence in adolescents with OCD. Methods Twenty-seven adolescents with OCD and 46 controls completed a predictive-inference task, designed to probe how subjects actions and confidence ratings fluctuate in response to unexpected outcomes. We investigated how subjects update actions in response to prediction errors (indexing mismatches between expectations and outcomes) and used parameters from a Bayesian model to predict how confidence and action evolve over time. Confidence-action association strength was assessed using a regression model. We also investigated the effects of serotonergic medication. Results Adolescents with OCD showed significantly increased learning rates, particularly following small prediction errors. Results were driven primarily by unmedicated patients. Confidence ratings appeared equivalent between groups, although model-based analysis revealed that patients confidence was less affected by prediction errors compared to controls. Patients and controls did not differ in the extent to which they updated actions and confidence in tandem. Conclusions Adolescents with OCD showed enhanced action adjustments, especially in the face of small prediction errors, consistent with previous research establishing just-right compulsions, enhanced error-related negativity, and greater decision-uncertainty in paediatric-OCD. These tendencies were ameliorated in patients receiving serotonergic medication, emphasising the importance of early intervention in preventing disorder-related cognitive deficits. Confidence ratings were equivalent between young patients and controls, mirroring findings in adults OCD research.

scholarly journals A trans-diagnostic perspective on obsessive-compulsive disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (9) ◽  
pp. 1528-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Gillan ◽  
N. A. Fineberg ◽  
T. W. Robbins
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Diagnostic Category ◽  
Case Control Studies ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Symptom Dimensions ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Considerable Problem ◽  
Directed Learning ◽  
Genetic Contributions

Progress in understanding the underlying neurobiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has stalled in part because of the considerable problem of heterogeneity within this diagnostic category, and homogeneity across other putatively discrete, diagnostic categories. As psychiatry begins to recognize the shortcomings of a purely symptom-based psychiatric nosology, new data-driven approaches have begun to be utilized with the goal of solving these problems: specifically, identifying trans-diagnostic aspects of clinical phenomenology based on their association with neurobiological processes. In this review, we describe key methodological approaches to understanding OCD from this perspective and highlight the candidate traits that have already been identified as a result of these early endeavours. We discuss how important inferences can be made from pre-existing case-control studies as well as showcasing newer methods that rely on large general population datasets to refine and validate psychiatric phenotypes. As exemplars, we take ‘compulsivity’ and ‘anxiety’, putatively trans-diagnostic symptom dimensions that are linked to well-defined neurobiological mechanisms, goal-directed learning and error-related negativity, respectively. We argue that the identification of biologically valid, more homogeneous, dimensions such as these provides renewed optimism for identifying reliable genetic contributions to OCD and other disorders, improving animal models and critically, provides a path towards a future of more targeted psychiatric treatments.

Modulation of error monitoring in obsessive–compulsive disorder by individually tailored symptom provocation

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (12) ◽  
pp. 2071-2080 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Roh ◽  
J.-G. Chang ◽  
S. W. Yoo ◽  
J. Shin ◽  
C.-H. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Error Monitoring ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Symptom Provocation ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Related Potentials

BackgroundThe enhanced error monitoring in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), typically measured with the error-related negativity (ERN), has been found to be temporally stable and independent of symptom expression. Here, we examined whether the error monitoring in patients with OCD could be experimentally modulated by individually tailored symptom provocation.MethodTwenty patients with OCD and 20 healthy controls performed a flanker task in which OCD-relevant or neutral pictures were presented prior to a flanker stimulus. An individualized stimulus set consisting of the most provoking images in terms of OCD symptoms was selected for each patient with OCD. Response-locked event-related potentials were recorded and used to examine the error-related brain activity.ResultsPatients with OCD showed larger ERN amplitudes than did control subjects in both the OCD-symptom provocation and neutral conditions. Additionally, while patients with OCD exhibited a significant increase in the ERN under the OCD-symptom provocation condition when compared with the neutral condition, control subjects showed no variation in the ERN between the conditions.ConclusionsOur results strengthen earlier findings of hyperactive error monitoring in OCD, as indexed by higher ERN amplitudes in patients with OCD than in controls. Importantly, we showed that the patients’ overactive error-signals were experimentally enhanced by individually tailored OCD-symptom triggers, thus suggesting convincing evidence between OCD-symptoms and ERN. Such findings imply that therapeutic interventions should target affective regulation in order to alleviate the perceived threatening value of OCD triggers.

scholarly journals Error-Related Negativity and Tic History in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (9) ◽  
pp. 902-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory L. Hanna ◽  
Melisa Carrasco ◽  
Shannon M. Harbin ◽  
Jenna K. Nienhuis ◽  
Christina E. LaRosa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Error Related Negativity

Enhanced error related negativity amplitude in medication-naïve, comorbidity-free obsessive compulsive disorder

2018 ◽  
Vol 262 ◽  
pp. 373-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hema Nawani ◽  
Janardhanan.C. Narayanaswamy ◽  
Shrinivasa Basavaraju ◽  
Anushree Bose ◽  
Sri Mahavir Agarwal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Error Related Negativity

scholarly journals Error-related brain activity dissociates hoarding disorder from obsessive-compulsive disorder

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Mathews ◽  
V. B. Perez ◽  
B. J. Roach ◽  
S. Fekri ◽  
O. Vigil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Large Error ◽  
Error Monitoring ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Hoarding Disorder ◽  
Illness Onset ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Performance Errors

BackgroundObsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with an abnormally large error-related negativity (ERN), an electrophysiological measure of error monitoring in response to performance errors, but it is unclear if hoarding disorder (HD) also shows this abnormality. This study aimed to determine whether the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying error monitoring are similarly compromised in HD and OCD.MethodWe used a visual flanker task to assess ERN in response to performance errors in 14 individuals with HD, 27 with OCD, 10 with HD+OCD, and 45 healthy controls (HC). Age-corrected performance and ERN amplitudes were examined using analyses of variance and planned pairwise group comparisons.ResultsA main effect of hoarding on ERN (p = 0.031) was observed, indicating ERN amplitudes were attenuated in HD relative to non-HD subjects. A group × age interaction effect on ERN was also evident. In HD-positive subjects, ERN amplitude deficits were significantly greater in younger individuals (r = −0.479, p = 0.018), whereas there were no significant ERN changes with increasing age in OCD and HC participants.ConclusionsThe reduced ERN in HD relative to OCD and HC provides evidence that HD is neurobiologically distinct from OCD, and suggests that deficient error monitoring may be a core pathophysiological feature of HD. This effect was particularly prominent in younger HD participants, further suggesting that deficient error monitoring manifests most strongly early in the illness course and/or in individuals with a relatively early illness onset.

scholarly journals Conflict monitoring and adaptation as reflected by N2 amplitude in obsessive–compulsive disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 1379-1388 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Riesel ◽  
J. Klawohn ◽  
N. Kathmann ◽  
T. Endrass
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Conflict Adaptation ◽  
Conflict Monitoring ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Conflict Processing ◽  
Related Potentials

BackgroundFeelings of doubt and perseverative behaviours are key symptoms of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and have been linked to hyperactive error and conflict signals in the brain. While enhanced neural correlates of error monitoring have been robustly shown, far less is known about conflict processing and adaptation in OCD.MethodWe examined event-related potentials during conflict processing in 70 patients with OCD and 70 matched healthy comparison participants, focusing on the stimulus-locked N2 elicited in a flanker task. Conflict adaptation was evaluated by analysing sequential adjustments in N2 and behaviour, i.e. current conflict effects as a function of preceding conflict.ResultsPatients with OCD showed enhanced N2 amplitudes compared with healthy controls. Further, patients showed stronger conflict adaptation effects on reaction times and N2 amplitude. Thus, the effect of previous compatibility was larger in patients than in healthy participants as indicated by greater N2 adjustments in change trials (i.e. iC, cI). As a result of stronger conflict adaptation in patients, N2 amplitudes were comparable between groups in incompatible trials following incompatible trials.ConclusionsLarger N2 amplitudes and greater conflict adaptation in OCD point to enhanced conflict monitoring leading to increased recruitment of cognitive control in patients. This was most pronounced in change trials and was associated with stronger conflict adjustment in N2 and behaviour. Thus, hyperactive conflict monitoring in OCD may be beneficial in situations that require a high amount of control to resolve conflict, but may also reflect an effortful process that is linked to distress and symptoms of OCD.

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