Research

• What did Pichichero find?

  Children with throat infections displayed symptoms of OCD shortly after becoming infected
• what do Pichichero's findings show?


  Infection therefore has been shown to be linked to triggering OCD
• What did Zohar et al find?


  Giving a drug mCPP that reduces serotonin levels to OCD patients and non-OCD patients and they found it significantly enhanced symptoms of OCD in OCD patients
• What do Zohar et al's findings suggest?

  the sufferer's condition was linked to abnormal levels of serotonin

  • low serotonin levels linked to ocd?
• What did Saxena and Raunch do?


  Used various brain-scanning techniques (eg PET) to show an association between an abnormal activity level in the orbitofrontal cortex and OCD symptoms
• What do Saxena and Raunch's findings suggest?


  Neural mechanisms can be linked to the disorder
• What 3 pieces of research are important
• What 3 pieces of research are important in this explanation?

  • Pichichero- infection
  • Zohar et al- abnormal serotonin levels
  • Saxena and Raunch- brain scanning