Study On Inhibition Deficits And Intervention In Patients With Obsessive-compulsive Disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a kind of mental disorder which is characterized by intrusive thoughts and ritual behaviors. In recent years the failure of inhibition has been widely used as the reason of obsession and compulsion. As a result, the question of whether the failure of inhibition exists on OCD patients preoccupied researchers’attention. Unfortunately, during the past two decades, although there were plenty of research findings in this field, there were still many limitations, the first of which was the long-standing contradictory conclusions about the existence of inhibition difficult on OCDs due to all the different tasks applicable to the study of inhibition. Moreover, the cognitive neuropsychological mechanisms of inhibition haven’t been extensively studied. Also, the issue center around the characterization of OCD was discriminating OCD and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Therefore the question of whether the failure of inhibition co-occurred on the both kinds of patients was of vital importance because it had a bearing on a much more important question that whether the methods of psychotherapies were the same.Based on the problems mentioned above, we explored the existence of the failure of inhibition by means of experiment and the co-occurrence of inhibition difficult on GADs was studied simultaneously. Moreover, an effective psychotherapy method was developed based on the conclusions of our empirical research findings and the treatment evaluated. In particular, the purpose of study1was to explore the facilitation and inhibition effects by employing the facilitation and inhibition tasks and behavioral experiment. The purpose of study2was to explore the existence of behavioral inhibition by employing an antisaccade task and an eye tracking technology. And the purpose of study3was to explore the existence of cognitive inhibition by employing a latent inhibition task. In study4, the cognitive bias of inhibition was examined using the same task in study3by employing behavioral experiment. And then the cognitive neuropsychological mechanisms of inhibition were explored by employing the latent inhibition task and an ERP technology. In study5, a combined emotion treatment and the meta-cognitive therapy was developed based on the above conclusions and the treatment was evaluated. The main results were as follows:(1) There were two potential mechanisms that might led to the failure of inhibition on OCDs named facilitation and inhibition. By means of a task that could seperate the two effects, we found that the failure of inhibiton was the main mechanism which led to OCD. Compared with inhibition, the effect of facilitation was negligible.(2) There existed both the failure of behavioral inhibition and the failure of cognitive inhibition on OCDs.(3) There were significant differences in the question of whether the failure of inhibition exists between OCDs and GADs, which indicated that the failure of inhibition was the unique character of OCDs. There was no sharing on inhibition failure between OCDs and GADs.(4) There existed cognitive bias of inhibition on OCDs. But the failure of inhibition was also confirmed. To sum up, the joint effects of cognitive inhibition failure and cognitive inhibition bias might be the pathogenesis of OCD.(5) OCDs had a higher visual sensitivity than GADs. Particularly, OCDs had a larger range of peripheral vision and they were more sensitive to peripheral stimuli.(6) The combined emotion treatment and meta-cognitive therapy was an effective therapy to OCDs. According to the data of treatment, it had a lower rate of recurrence than other combined therapies.