Abstract

Objective: Many theories have been proposed to explain the etiology of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but neuroimaging studies suggest neurodegeneration as a possible cause. Neurodegenerative diseases may cause a reduction in the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and the ganglion cell complex (GCC), and these changes can be detected by optical coherence tomography (OCT). The aim of this study was to examine the potential relationship between OCT findings and the clinical features of patients with OCD versus the findings for a healthy control (HC) group.
Methods: Patients with OCD (n=42) and HC subjects (n=50) completed sociodemographic, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory forms and underwent OCT. Patients undertook clinical interviews for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (SCID-I) and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale scores, whereas the HC group interviews used the SCID non-patient version.
Results: The RNFL and GCC values were significantly lower in the OCD than in the HC group (p

Key words: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, optic coherence tomography, neurodegeneration, retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, ganglion cell layer volume