University of Florida, USA; Dept. of Psychiatry, USA; Center for OCD, Anxiety, and Related Disorders, USA.
University of Florida, USA.
Clin Neurophysiol. 2023 Jul;151:134-142. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2023.03.001. Epub 2023 Mar 11.
Existing studies have shown changes in attention and emotion processing of disorder-relevant visual stimuli in those with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). However, early visual processing in OCD has not been assessed, as previous studies did not examine the entire time course of visual processing but instead assessed potential differences in pre-determined visual evoked potentials (VEPs). This study investigates the entire visual processing stream in OCD compared to healthy age-matched controls (HC) using emotionally-neutral visual stimuli and a data-driven rather than hypothesis-driven approach.
35 HC and 26 participants with OCD underwent EEG recording while completing a modified Eriksen flanker task. Permutation-controlled t-tests were used to identify group differences in the data's full time course of visual evoked potentials. Baseline-corrected amplitudes at time points where the groups were significantly different were analyzed using ANCOVAs with BDI, BAI, and SNAP-inattentiveness scores included as covariates.
This analysis identified enhanced P1 amplitudes to two visual stimuli (the initial flanker and the stimulus), corresponding to time windows of 65-93 ms and 157-187 ms post-flanker presentation in the OCD group compared to controls. Group (OCD vs. HC) was the strongest predictor of VEP amplitude during both time windows, with no significant influences of any covariates.
This study showed an enhanced P1 component in people with OCD to neutral visual stimuli, potentially reflecting either inefficient or excessive early visual processing in this population. Additional inquiry is necessary to determine whether altered visual processing is associated with the sensory hypervigilance observed in those with OCD.
This work identifies early visual processing alterations in OCD using neutral stimuli and a data-driven approach.
现有研究表明，强迫症（OCD）患者对与疾病相关的视觉刺激的注意力和情绪处理发生了变化。然而，尚未评估 OCD 中的早期视觉处理，因为先前的研究并未检查整个视觉处理过程，而是评估了预定视觉诱发电位（VEPs）中的潜在差异。本研究使用中性视觉刺激，采用数据驱动而非假设驱动的方法，比较 OCD 患者和健康年龄匹配对照者（HC）的整个视觉处理过程。
35 名 HC 和 26 名 OCD 患者在完成修改后的埃里森（Eriksen）侧抑制任务时接受 EEG 记录。采用置换控制的 t 检验来识别组间数据的整个视觉诱发电位时间过程中的差异。对组间存在显著差异的时间点的基线校正后的振幅进行分析，采用 ANCOVA 分析，将 BDI、BAI 和 SNAP 注意力不集中评分作为协变量。
该分析确定 OCD 组中两个视觉刺激（初始侧抑制和刺激）的 P1 振幅增强，与侧抑制后 65-93ms 和 157-187ms 的时间窗相对应。在两个时间窗中，组（OCD 与 HC）是 VEP 振幅的最强预测因子，没有任何协变量的显著影响。
本研究显示 OCD 患者对中性视觉刺激的 P1 成分增强，这可能反映了该人群中早期视觉处理效率低下或过度。需要进一步研究以确定视觉处理改变是否与 OCD 中观察到的感觉过度警觉有关。
本研究使用中性刺激和数据驱动方法，在 OCD 中确定了早期视觉处理的改变。
