Quantitative electroencephalography in OCD patients treated with paroxetine

The effectiveness of drugs that have a specific effect on the activity of the serotonergic neurotransmitter system has changed the outlook for patients suffering from Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). With a response rate of about 70% to such compounds and the great amount of brain imaging studies conducted over the past decades, an understanding of the biochemical nature and origins of OCD is beginning to unfold. Convergent data including ethological and experimental observations, clinico-pathological findings and different imaging methods have implicated the basal ganglia along with the cortical and related thalamic structures to be involved in the pathophysiology of OCD. In a previous study using the quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG) method known as neurometrics, in which QEEG data from OCD patients were compared statistically with those from an age-appropriate normative population, two subtypes within a clinically homogeneous patient group were classified. Patients with relative excess theta activity, especially in the frontal regions, were nonresponders to treatment with serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), while those with increased relative power in alpha activity were responders to pharmacological treatment. These findings suggested at least two subgroups in a patient population with similar symptoms but differential responses to treatment. In the present study we used neurometric QEEG to subtype a group of 20 non-depressed OCD patients, fulfilling DSM-R-III criteria, treated with paroxetine, of whom 18 were responders to treatment. Of the treatment responders, 94.4% were predicted by subtype membership to be SSRI responsers. In these subjects there was a strong relative alpha baseline activity; after successful treatment through at least 3 months this activity decreased, looking more normal. The group average topographic maps showed none of the characteristics seen in the nonresponder cluster (no excess relative power in theta). As in the previous investigation, baseline QEEG profile membership points to a predictive value with regard to therapeutic response.