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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 5/2018

01-08-2018 | Original Paper

Planning functioning and impulsiveness in obsessive–compulsive disorder

Authors: Riccardo Maria Martoni, Roberta de Filippis, Stefania Cammino, Mattia Giuliani, Gaia Risso, Maria Cristina Cavallini, Laura Bellodi

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 5/2018

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Abstract

Planning ability (PA) is a key aspect of cognitive functioning and requires subjects to identify and organise the necessary steps to achieve a goal. Despite the central role of executive dysfunction in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), deficits in PA have been investigated leading to contrasting results. Given these inconsistencies, the main aim of our work is to give a deeper and clearer understanding of PA in OCD patients. Moreover, we are interested in investigating the relationship between PAs and impulsivity traits and other clinical variables. Sixty-eight OCD patients and 68 healthy controls (HCs) matched for sex and age were assessed through the Stocking of Cambridge (SoC), a computerised version of the Tower of London. We examined planning sub-components for each difficulty levels (from 2 to 5 minimum moves). Our results showed that OCD patients needed longer initial thinking time than HCs during the execution of low demanding tasks (i.e. 2 and 3 moves), while the accuracy level between the two groups did not significantly differ. OCD patients required longer initial thinking time also during high demanding tasks (i.e., 4 and 5 moves), but in this case their accuracy was significantly worse than HCs’ one. We did not find any association between impulsivity and PAs. Our results supported the hypothesis that OCD patients were not able to retain in memory the planned sequence and they had to reschedule their movements during the execution. Thus, future studies should deepen the interrelation between working memory and PA to better understand the influence between these two cognitive functions and their interaction with clinical variables in OCD patients.
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Metadata
Title
Planning functioning and impulsiveness in obsessive–compulsive disorder
Authors
Riccardo Maria Martoni
Roberta de Filippis
Stefania Cammino
Mattia Giuliani
Gaia Risso
Maria Cristina Cavallini
Laura Bellodi
Publication date
01-08-2018
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 5/2018
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0803-0

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