Neuropsychological performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder: A comparison with bipolar disorder and healthy controls

Abstract

This study examined whether patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have deficits in executive functioning and memory, as well as the specificity of any OCD-related neuropsychological dysfunction. Previous studies have indicated poorer performance among individuals with OCD compared to healthy controls across the majority of neuropsychological domains, however, findings are very inconsistent. We included 34 individuals with bipolar-I disorder (BP-I), 35 untreated patients with OCD, and 33 healthy controls matched for age, gender, and education. Participants completed the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) visual-reproduction subscale, and Stroop Color-Word Interference Test (SCWIT). Compared to both healthy controls and participants with OCD, patients with BP-I showed poorer performance in long-delay verbal recall. Although participants with OCD performed more poorly in visual recall than both BP-I patients and healthy controls, their scores were within the normative range. In pairwise comparisons, OCD did not differ from either BP-I or controls. No significant differences were found in verbal memory or Stroop performance between OCD and healthy controls. Overall, we found no significant differences in neuropsychological performance between patients with OCD and healthy controls that could potentially contribute to functional impairment. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.