Chronic medication does not affect hyperactive error responses in obsessive-compulsive disorder
Open accessAbstract
Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show an increased error-related negativity (ERN), yet previous studies have not controlled for medication use, which may be important given evidence linking performance monitoring to neurotransmitter systems targeted by treatment, such as serotonin. In an examination of 19 unmedicated OCD patients, 19 medicated OCD patients, 19 medicated patient controls without OCD, and 21 unmedicated healthy controls, we found greater ERNs in OCD patients than in controls, irrespective of medication use. Severity of generalized anxiety and depression was associated with ERN amplitude in controls but not patients. These data confirm previous findings of an exaggerated error response in OCD, further showing that it cannot be attributed to medication. The absence in patients of a relationship between ERN amplitude and anxiety/depression, as was found in controls, suggests that elevated error signals in OCD may be disorder-specific.
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The amplitude of OCD patients' ERN does not depend significantly on the treatments they receive.
“the amplitude of OCD patients’ ERN does not depend significantly on the treatments they receive [27].”
From Error-Related Brain Potentials as Biomarkers of Pathology Severity and Treatment Resistance in Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (2026) · cites this paper as [27]
The Results (Electrophysiological) report no significant interaction between ERN amplitude and medication status, and the Discussion says ERNs were similarly increased in medicated and unmedicated OCD groups. The claim broadens this finding from chronic medication to treatments generally; this study did not test the effects of all treatments. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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“Consistent with previous studies finding no effect of serotonergic antidepressants on the ERN [6,29,33], patients were included if they were taking a stable dose of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) but no other psychotropic medications.”
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“These findings are consistent with previous research reporting that increased error-related neural activity, such as enhanced ERN amplitude, is not altered by medication use (Stern et al. 2010), a finding that has contributed to the proposal that hyperactive EM is a stable, endophenotypic trait for OCD (Kathmann et al.”
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“In line with this idea, the amplitude of OCD patients ’ ERN does not depend signi fi cantly on the treatments they receive [27].”
- Authors
- Stern, E. R., Liu, Y., Gehring, W. J., Lister, J. J., Yin, G., Zhang, J., Fitzgerald, K. D., Himle, J. A., Abelson, J. L., & Taylor, S. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Stern, Emily R.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Psychophysiology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-03
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 913-20
- ISSN
- 0048-5772 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-8986
- PMC
- PMC3928597
- OpenAlex
- W2120941817
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 8.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Psychophysiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH071821, F32MH082573)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- obsessive-compulsive disorder, error-related negativity, performance monitoring, chronic medication, serotonin, generalized anxiety disorder, depression
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Hypnotics and Sedatives, Male, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, Young Adult
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