Cognitive Neuroscience of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Emily R. Stern

This book reviews the cognitive neuroscientific models of OCD and treatment effects. As a subdiscipline of both psychology and neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience bridges these fields by focusing on neuroimaging studies in humans. This book is composed of two sections: one on phenomenology and the other on treatment effects. In the phenomenology section, chapters describe different psychological/behavioral models of OCD, highlighting their underlying neurocircuit mechanisms within the context of the larger cognitive neuroscience literature. These chapters will not only increase the reader’s understanding of the neurobiology of OCD but also highlight brain circuits that could be targeted by future treatment developments. In the treatment section, chapters will describe the effects of gold-standard treatments (e.g., SSRI medication, CBT/ExRP) as well as novel medications (e.g.,ketamine, psilocybin) and neuromodulation approaches (e.g., DBS, TMS) on neurocognitive mechanisms in OCD, providing an overview of current research while illuminating outstanding questions. The text will be written to target a high-level academic community, while also being accessible to students of psychology or neuroscience.