The probability of association between response inhibition and compulsive symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder: Response to Abramovitch and Abramowitz

摘要

Abramovitch and Abramowitz (2014) listed several problems with the conclusions they interpret as having been drawn from cross-sectional (correlational) data in our recent article (Harsanyi et al., 2014). First of all, causal inferences such as response inhibition deficits underlying compulsive rituals cannot logically be concluded from correlational data. However, this conclusion was never drawn in our article. Contrary to what Abramovitch and Abramowitz state in their Letter to the Editors, we did not conclude that response inhibition leads to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); rather, we reported that inhibition deficit can be observed in OCD. We, of course, share the opinion of Abramovitch and Abramowitz that extensive deficits of executive functions, including response inhibition, are identifiable in several other psychiatric illnesses (e.g., in schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorders, and depression). We described correlations in our article based on the results of our research. However, we would like to emphasize the fact that in the case of the 51 OCD patients, we not only used questionnaires measuring executive functions (DEX, WBSI), but we also used a well-validated neuro-cognitive test battery to assess these functions.