Posted by 
Obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD is a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts obsessions and behaviors. It is a psychiatric condition that is associated with control disorder, reoccurring thoughts and repetition of behaviors.
Common symptoms include fear of germs or contamination, unwanted or aggressive thoughts, and compulsions to clean, check or put things in order. It can be treated with medication, psychotherapy or both.
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD demonstrate changes in their brain and symptoms improvement when treated with a special form of talk therapy. People with OCD underwent daily cognitive behavioral therapy to learn how to prevent compulsive behaviors and to decrease distress, this leads to increases in the strength of the connections between regions of their brains.
Researchers evaluated people with OCD who received intensive CBT therapy and people without OCD who were used as a comparison group. Participants underwent scans with a neuroimaging tool- functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI.
Those with OCD were scanned before and after four weeks of treatment, and those who do not have OCD and therefore did not receive treatment were also scanned before and after the four weeks. Before and after brain scans of the participants who received CBT showed an increase in connectivity which can signify greater communication between the cerebellum and the striatum, and between the cerebellum and the prefrontal cortex.
The scans of people without OCD did not show any changes; and among the people with OCD who waited four weeks for their treatment, there were also no changes during the waiting period, demonstrating that the changes in the brain do not occur spontaneously with the passage of time.
haleplushearty.blogspot.com