Symmetry symptoms in obsessive-compulsive disorder: clinical and genetic correlates

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Date
2016Author
Lochner, Christine
Harvey, Brian H.
McGregor, Nathaniel
Hemmings, Sian
Breet, Elsie
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Show full item recordAbstract
Objective: In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), symmetry-related symptoms may be important.
Although clinical correlates of symmetry-related symptoms have been identified in OCD, few data exist
on genetic associations. Animal studies indicate involvement of dopamine in symmetry-related
behavior, suggesting this may be relevant to analogous symptoms in OCD. Alterations in dopamine
may also reflect environmental influences. However, the association of symmetry-related symptomatology,
early adversity, and polymorphisms in dopaminergic genes has not been investigated in OCD.
Methods: Clinical information and polymorphisms in key dopaminergic genes were compared
between OCD patients with primary symmetry symptoms and those without.
Results: OCD patients with primary symmetry symptoms comprised 46.6% (n=210) of the sample
(n=451), and were older (po0.01), had longer illness duration (po0.01), higher OCD severity scores
(p = 0.01), and greater comorbidity (p o 0.01) than those without. In Caucasians (n=343), genotype
frequency differed significantly between groups for ANKK1 rs1800497, with more OCD patients with
symmetry symptoms being homozygous for the A2 (CC) genotype (w2 = 7.296; p = 0.026).
Conclusion: Symmetry symptoms have some distinct clinical features and may represent a marker of
severity in OCD. However, clinical associations, in combination with the association found with the
ANKK1 rs1800497 A2 variant, suggest that primary symmetry symptoms may represent a distinctive
clinical and psychobiological profile
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/19123https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-44462016000100017&lng=en&tlng=en
https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2014-1619
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