A team of researchers presented an innovative method for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder called deep brain stimulation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Feb. 18. The team shared the technique and results of their ongoing research, which began more than 10 years ago.
OCD "is a disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts," said Nicole McLaughlin, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior and a member of the research team, adding that these thoughts are often caused by anxiety. An extreme case of the disorder — which can range from mild to severe — is defined as "when something basically gets in the way of life," she said.
If medication and behavioral therapy have failed in these severe cases, deep brain stimulation can help. Originally used for movement disorders like Parkinson's disease, deep brain stimulation can now be used to treat OCD.
During deep brain stimulation, doctors insert electrodes under the skin that send impulses to correct problems in the brain. These electrodes stimulate specific parts of the brain — for example, those that play a role in obsessive thoughts. McLaughlin said the stimulation helps to increase mood and decrease general anxiety. In combination with medication and behavioral therapy, the stimulation has been successful in about 70 percent of cases, according to Steven Rasmussen P'13, who led the research with Benjamin Greenberg, both associate professors of psychiatry and human behavior.
Because researchers are still refining the techniques of deep brain stimulation, there have been mixed feelings from the general public regarding its safety and ethical implications. Ethicists have expressed concern that the research should not have received a Humanitarian Device Exemption grant — which provides approval to implant electrodes in a patient's body — because they say the success rate is not high enough. Rasmussen said that the ethicists doubt whether deep brain stimulation has been studied well enough to be fully implemented for patients suffering from OCD. But, Rasmussen added, "if it was your family member who was suffering from this, wouldn't you want the option of having the treatment?"
Rasmussen and McLaughlin both said a national registry is vital for the sake of the future of deep brain stimulation. A registry would help to collect data from everyone who performs these surgeries across the country, and "hopefully this could help inform us and also inform potentially other forms of anxiety treatments and those kind of things," McLaughlin said. "If we understand how these kinds of surgeries can make OCD better, then we may also be able to find other techniques we could use on a larger OCD population."
"The more systematic data we collect, the better off we are in knowing what's going to help and what's not going to help," Rasmussen said.
Both researchers expressed hope for the future of deep brain stimulation and said they believe that, with further research, the stimulation can be used in more effective and systematic methods.
