Electrical stimulation of the anterior limbs of the internal capsules in patients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder: anecdotal reports.

Anterior capsular stimulation induces some improvement in severe treatment-resistant OCD patients. At this stage, not all stimulation-induced effects can be explained. The effects are a valuable source for further neurophysiologic and neuroanatomic research. It was reassuring that when the group of Drs Rasmussen, Greenberg, and Friehs in Providence and the group of Drs Rezai, Montgomery, and Malone in Cleveland started to operate on OCD patients using exactly the same technique, similar effects were seen in the patients. The authors still want to stress that anterior capsular stimulation remains investigational and needs optimization, especially to try to solve the problem of the short battery life of the stimulators.