Error-Related Brain Activity in Patients with Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder and in Healthy Controls

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been related to a hyperactive frontal-striatal-thalamic circuit and associated with altered mechanisms of action and error monitoring. In the present study, we examined whether these results only hold for errors in choice reaction time experiments and Stroop tasks or extend to errors of commission in a Go/NoGo task, as well. We investigated the electrophysiological correlates of error monitoring in 11 patients with OCD and 11 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants performed a Go/NoGo task while a 64-channel EEG was recorded. Our study focused on three ERP components: the error-related negativity (ERN)/error negativity (Ne), the “early” error positivity (“early” Pe) reflecting automatic error processing, and the “late” error positivity (“late” Pe), which is thought to mirror the awareness of erroneous responses. Artifact-free EEG-segments were used to compute ERPs on correct Go trials and incorrect NoGo trials (i.e., errors of commission), separately. Patients with OCD showed enhanced (more negative) ERN/Ne amplitudes compared to control subjects. Groups did not differ with regard to the early Pe component and the late Pe component. Our results support the view that compulsivity in OCD patients is related to hyper-functioning error monitoring processes.

The effect of trial-to-trial feedback on the error-related negativity and its relationship with anxiety

“…On the other hand, most studies to date have shown an increased ERN in individuals with anxiety disorders, such as OCD (Gehring et al, 2000;Johannes et al, 2001;Ruchsow et al, 2005) and generalized anxiety disorder (Ladouceur, Dahl, Birmaher, Axelson, & Ryan, 2006), and in individuals reporting anxiety symptoms (Hajcak et al, 2003;Hajcak & Simons, 2002;Santesso et al, 2006); however, in all of these studies, speeded response tasks without trial-to-trial feedback were used. Our findings suggest that the lack of association between the ERN and anxiety is not specific to reinforcement learning per se but may be due to the presence of trial-to-trial feedback.…”

“…Gehring, Himle, and Nisenson (2000) first demonstrated that individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) had larger ERNs than did healthy controls, and these data were taken to reflect exaggerated error signals that might underlie the cycle of obsessions and compulsions that characterizes patients with OCD. Although a number of researchers have subsequently replicated the finding that OCD and obsessive-compulsive traits are related to an increased ERN Hajcak & Simons, 2002;Johannes et al, 2001;Ruchsow et al, 2005;Santesso, Segalo witz, & Schmidt, 2006), it appears that this effect is not specific to OCD. For example, some studies have shown larger ERNs among individuals who are worried…”

Error-related event-related potentials in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, reading disorder, and math disorder

“…ERN amplitude is increased by motivational manipulations like reward value and evaluation of performance (Hajcak, Moser, Yeung, and Simons, 2005). In addition, ERN amplitude is enhanced in several clinical conditions involving affective distress, including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Gehring, Himle, and Nisenson, 2000;Ruchsow, Grön, Reuter, Spitzer, Hermle, and Kiefer, 2005). In contrast, ERN amplitude is reduced in schizophrenia (Mathalon et al, 2002).…”

Chronic alcoholism: Insights from neurophysiology

“…Of particular note is that this system partly overlaps with brain regions involved in response inhibition [103]. Ruchsow et al [145] found that impulsivity, which is strongly related to alcoholism, was associated with weakened R-ERNs in a flanker task.…”