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Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Make it clearer
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, which many people know as OCD, has two pieces that hook into each other. Obsessions are thoughts, urges, or images that enter the mind uninvited, keep repeating, and are hard to control. Compulsions are repetitive acts, either visible or carried out only in the mind, that the person feels they have to do to ease the distress those obsessions cause or to prevent something they fear.
That hook works in two steps. When the person encounters whatever triggers the obsession, anxiety rises; when they perform the ritual, anxiety falls.
What happens in the brain? In a circuit that connects the cortex with the striatum and the thalamus, the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit, there are two pathways: the direct pathway, which starts behaviors, and the indirect pathway, which puts the brakes on them. Picture a car in which the foot on the gas pedal pushes harder than the brake can hold back. Something like this has been seen in OCD: the direct pathway, more active than the indirect one, creates an imbalance that could cause the intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
In brief
Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves obsessions (intrusive, repetitive thoughts, urges, or images that are hard to control) and compulsions (repetitive acts or mental acts the person feels driven to perform to relieve the distress of obsessions or avert a feared outcome).
In the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit, the direct pathway, which initiates behaviors, has been found overactive relative to the indirect pathway, which inhibits them; this imbalance could cause intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
Anxiety rises with whatever triggers the obsession and falls with the compulsive ritual.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingObsessive-Compulsive Disorder, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated