Essentials: The Science & Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explain the biology and psychology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and describe the neural circuitry behind repetitive "thought-action loops," including why compulsive actions actually strengthen the underlying obsessions rather than relieve them. I discuss the most effective treatments for OCD, including exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy and SSRIs, and explain what the research shows about how these compare when used alone versus together. Finally, I describe a specific clinical protocol in which patients are guided into states of anxiety while learning to suppress compulsive responses, retraining the brain to break the OCD cycle.
Articles
- Repeated cortico-striatal stimulation generates persistent OCD-like behavior (Science)
- Implicit and explicit memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder (Journal of Anxiety Disorders)
- Patient adherence to cognitive-behavioral therapy predicts long-term outcome in obsessive-compulsive disorder (The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry)
- Randomized, placebo-controlled trial of exposure and ritual prevention, clomipramine, and their combination in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (The American Journal of Psychiatry)
- Pharmacotherapeutic Strategies and New Targets in OCD (Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences)
- Acute effects of cannabinoids on symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder: A human laboratory study (Depression and Anxiety)
- Neurosteroid Levels in Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Psychiatry Investigation)
- Nutraceuticals in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD): a review of mechanistic and clinical evidence (Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry)
- Capacity to delay reward differentiates obsessive-compulsive disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (Biological Psychiatry)
Resources
People Mentioned
- Dr. Helen Blair Simpson: Research scientist and clinician at Columbia University School of Medicine, and one of the world's foremost experts on OCD mechanisms and treatment
This transcript is currently under human review and may contain errors. The fully reviewed version will be posted as soon as it is available.
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The Science & Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
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