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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 24HEALTH & SCIENCEFaulty Circuits
Bad brain wiring may underlie obsessive-compulsive disorder
Chronic acute anxieties about sex, violence and contamination
are bizarre and debilitating. Sufferers of so-called
obsessive-compulsive disorder -- about 2% of populations
worldwide -- constantly repeat such simple actions as washing
their hands, manically checking doors and stoves, and hoarding
newspapers. Scientists who have long suspected that a key
problem is a malfunction in the brain's circuitry now have
strong evidence to support that idea. According to researchers
at the University of California, Los Angeles, successful
behavior-modification therapy and drug treatment both have a
marked effect on a central region of the brain that governs the
learning of habits and routines.
In their study, published in Archives of General
Psychiatry, one group of patients was treated by scientists with
the drug Prozac while those in the second group met regularly
with a therapist who worked on helping them acquire control over
their senseless fears and urges through deconditioning
exercises. In 10 weeks, about two-thirds of the patients in both
groups had improved. Brain scans of responsive patients showed
a decrease in metabolic activity in the brain's right caudate
nucleus.
Normally, the caudate nucleus filters the flood of anxious
feelings and sensations that are relayed from the orbital
cortex, an area of the brain just above the eyes, and sends only
the significant ones on to the thalamus for further action. But
in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, says
neuroscientist Lewis Baxter, who led the team, the caudate
nucleus is "a poor executive officer. He's bombarded with
messages from worrywarts. But instead of setting priorities, he
gets excited about all the messages and passes them on to the
dispatcher."