Visuomotor Activation of Inhibition-Processing in Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Magnetoencephalography Study

Background: Response inhibition engages the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuit, which has been implicated in children, and youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). This study explored whether CSTC engagement during response inhibition, measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG), differed in a sample of medication-naive youth with OCD, compared to typically developing controls (TDC). Methods: Data was analyzed in 17 medication-naive children and youth with OCD (11.7 +/- 2.2 SD years) and 13 TDC (12.6 +/- 2.2 SD years). MEG was used to localize and characterize neural activity during a Go/No-Go task. Task performance on Go/No-Go conditions and regional differences in amplitude of activity during Go and No-Go condition between OCD vs. TDC were examined using two-sample t-tests. Post-hoc analysis with Bayesian t-tests was used to estimate the certainty of outcomes. Results: No differences in Go/No-Go performance were found between OCD and TDC groups. In response to the visual cue presented during the Go condition, participants with OCD showed significantly increased amplitude of activity in the primary motor (MI) cortex compared to TDC. In addition, significantly reduced amplitude of PCu was found following successful stopping to No-Go cues in OCD vs. TDC during No-Go task performance. Bayesian t-tests indicated high probability and large effect sizes for the differences in MI and PCu amplitude found between groups. Conclusion: Our preliminary study in a small medication-naive sample extends previous work indicating intact response inhibition in pediatric OCD. While altered neural response in the current study was found during response inhibition performance in OCD, differences localized to regions outside of the CSTC. Our findings suggest that additional imaging research in medication-naive samples is needed to clarify regional differences associated with OCD vs. influenced by medication effects, and suggest that MEG may be sensitive to detecting such differences.

Automated summary

Our study found no differences in response inhibition performance between medication-naive youth with OCD and typical developing controls. However, we observed significantly increased activity in the primary motor cortex (MI) during the Go condition and reduced activity in the precuneus (PCu) following successful stopping to No-Go cues in the OCD group compared to TDC, suggesting differences in neural response outside of the CSTC region. Further imaging research is needed to clarify regional differences associated with OCD and the influence of medication effects, with MEG showing promise in detecting such differences.