What side effects are associated with this type of intervention?

Common treatments for OCD include pharmacotherapy with SSRIs, clomipramine, and venlafaxine, which can cause side effects such as nausea, headache, insomnia, and sexual dysfunction. Behavioral therapy, particularly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) with exposure and response prevention, may lead to temporary increases in anxiety and distress. Deep brain stimulation (DBS), an investigational treatment for severe, treatment-refractory OCD, can have surgical complications like infection and hemorrhage, hardware malfunctions, and stimulation-related issues such as mood changes and seizures. These treatments can impact neural activity, which is measurable by EEG.

What prior FDA approvals exist?

The FDA has approved several medications for the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), primarily focusing on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, and sertraline. Clomipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant, is also approved for OCD. Augmentation strategies often involve the use of antipsychotics like risperidone and aripiprazole. Research involving electroencephalogram (EEG) aims to understand the neural activity associated with OCD, potentially guiding future treatments that target specific neural circuits involved in the disorder.

What other types of research exist?

Promising, novel alternatives to EEG for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients include Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS). Both methods are non-invasive and have shown potential in modulating neural activity and improving symptoms in OCD patients.

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Exposure and Response Prevention for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

N/A

Waitlist Available

Led By Amy Rapp, PhD

Research Sponsored by Columbia University

Eligibility Criteria Checklist

Specific guidelines that determine who can or cannot participate in a clinical trial

Must have

Be between 18 and 65 years old

Timeline

Screening 3 weeks

Treatment Varies

Follow Up one-time study visit

Awards & highlights

No Placebo-Only Group

Summary

This trial involves observing brain activity and behavior in people with OCD and healthy individuals during a learning task. The goal is to understand how learning differences contribute to compulsive behaviors by using EEG and computational modeling.

Who is the study for?

This trial is for English-speaking adults aged 18-50 with a primary diagnosis of OCD of at least moderate severity. It's not suitable for those with significant medical conditions, substance use disorders in the past year, recent Ex/RP therapy for OCD, current psychotropic medication use, or other psychiatric disorders.

What is being tested?

The study examines how individuals with OCD and healthy controls employ learning strategies differently. It involves one experimental task to collect behavioral data and EEG recordings from each group (30 participants each), using computational modeling to link neural measures to behavior.

What are the potential side effects?

Since this trial involves non-invasive procedures like EEG recording and psychological tasks rather than medications, side effects are minimal but may include discomfort or fatigue during testing.

Timeline

Screening ~ 3 weeks3 visits

Treatment ~ Varies

Follow Up ~ one-time study visit

Screening ~ 3 weeks

Treatment ~ Varies

Follow Up ~one-time study visit

This trial's timeline: 3 weeks for screening, Varies for treatment, and one-time study visit for reporting.

Treatment Details

Study Objectives

Study objectives can provide a clearer picture of what you can expect from a treatment.

Primary study objectives

Neural Activity

Awards & Highlights

No Placebo-Only Group

All patients enrolled in this study will receive some form of active treatment.

Trial Design

2Treatment groups

Experimental Treatment

Active Control

Group I: Behavioral TreatmentExperimental Treatment1 Intervention

Participants diagnosed with OCD will receive 16 sessions (1 hour long) of exposure and response prevention (Ex/RP) delivered twice weekly over the course of eight weeks.

Group II: No interventionActive Control1 Intervention

Healthy controls will not receive treatment over the course of eight weeks.

Treatment

First Studied

Drug Approval Stage

How many patients have taken this drug

Exposure and Response Prevention (Ex/RP)

2021

N/A

~50

Do I qualify?Apply below to find out

Research Highlights

Information in this section is not a recommendation. We encourage patients to speak with their healthcare team when evaluating any treatment decision.

Mechanism Of Action

Side Effect Profile

Prior Approvals

Other Research

Common treatments for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) include serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs), antipsychotic therapy, and deep brain stimulation (DBS). SRIs and antipsychotics primarily target serotonin and dopamine pathways, which are often dysregulated in OCD. DBS involves electrical modulation of specific brain regions, such as the nucleus accumbens, to reduce compulsive behaviors. These treatments are important because they address the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of OCD, such as corticostriatal thalamocortical circuitry and glutamate neurotransmission. Electroencephalogram (EEG) studies, which measure neural activity with high temporal resolution, can help identify neurocognitive alterations and optimize treatment strategies for individual patients.

Therapeutic Potentials of Ketamine and Esketamine in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Substance Use Disorders (SUD) and Eating Disorders (ED): A Review of the Current Literature.A mechanistic model for individualised treatment of anxiety disorders based on predictive neural biomarkers.Lost in translation? A critical look at the role that animal models of obsessive compulsive disorder play in current drug discovery strategies.