Shedding light on OCD cycle for better understanding of mental behaviour: Study

Researchers used a model of behaviour to better understand the basis of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Shedding light on OCD cycle for better understanding of mental behaviour: Study Scientists from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute international, and Tamagawa University have demonstrated that obsessive-compulsive disorder can be understood as a result of imbalanced learning between reinforcement and punishment. Using simulations, NAIST scientists found that agents implicitly learn obsessive-compulsive behavior when the trace decay factor for memory traces of past actions related to negative prediction errors is much smaller than that related to positive prediction errors. "Our model, with imbalanced trace decay factors successfully represents the vicious circle of obsession and compulsion characteristic of OCD," say co-first authors Yuki Sakai and Yutaka Sakai. Although it is currently difficult to identify treatment-resistant patients based upon their clinical symptoms, this computational model suggests that patients with highly imbalanced trace decay factors may not respond to behavioral therapy alone.