Brain scan and artificial intelligence could predict whether OCD will improve with treatment

 Washing hands needlessly dozens of times of day. Spending so much time perfecting schoolwork that it never gets turned in, Continuous Researching something, Brainstorming ( common in case of Software Engineers/Scientists), Uncontrolled thoughts (common in case of toxic environment and uncomfortable conditions) , Sharing continuosly something social media ( common for lone riders), religious indulgements which might be gone too far, over involvement is excercises and workout, showoffs - these are common among people especially during pandemic.

Artificial Intelligence and Humanoid robotics is boon for these kind of cases

These are typical behaviors for people with obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, a lifelong illness marked by repetitive thoughts and actions that can seriously impair work performance, relationships and quality of life. OCD is most commonly treated with medication and a form of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. Unfortunately, cognitive behavioral therapy does not help everyone with OCD, and the treatment can be expensive and time-consuming.

Now, UCLA researchers have developed a way to use brain scans and machine learning—a form of artificial intelligence—to predict whether people with OCD will benefit from cognitive behavior therapy. The technique could help improve the overall success rate of cognitive behavioral therapy, and it could enable therapists to tailor treatment to each patient.

A paper describing the work appears

"If the results of this study are replicated in future studies, the methods we used could potentially give clinicians a new predictive tool," said Nicco Reggente, a UCLA doctoral student and the study's first author. "If a patient is predicted to be a non-responder to cognitive behavioral therapy, clinicians could pursue different options."

Using a functional MRI machine, or fMRI, the researchers scanned the brains of 42 people with OCD, ages 18 to 60, before and after four weeks of intensive, daily cognitive behavioral therapy. Researchers specifically analyzed how different areas of the brain activate in sync with each other—a property called functional connectivity—during a period of rest. Functional MRI does this by measuring blood flow in the brain, which correlates with neurons' activity levels.

In addition, the scientists assessed the severity of participants' OCD symptoms before and after the treatment, using a scaled system in which a lower score indicates less severe or less frequent symptoms. The researchers fed the participants' fMRI data and symptom scores into a computer and then used machine learning to determine which people would respond. In machine learning, computers are trained to recognize common patterns in mountains of data by exposing them to numerous variations of the same thing.

The machine-learning program predicted which patients would fail to respond to cognitive behavioral therapy with 70 percent accuracy, significantly better than chance, or 50 percent. The algorithm also correctly predicted the participants' final scores on the symptoms assessment within a small margin of error, regardless of how they responded to the treatment.

"This method opens a window into OCD patients' brains to help us see how responsive they will be to treatment," said Dr. Jamie Feusner, a clinical neuroscientist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and the study's senior author. "The algorithm performed far better than our own predictions based on their symptoms and other clinical information."

Feusner, who also is a professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said if the study's results are replicated, OCD treatment could someday start with a brain scan. The cost to perform and interpret a brief MRI is several hundred dollars, he said. But that expense could help people who are unlikely to be helped by intensive cognitive behavioral therapy to avoid the cost of that treatment, which can be $2,500 to $5,000 per week, and typically runs for four to eight weeks.

Behavioral therapy increases connectivity in brains of people with OCD

UCLA researchers report that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, when treated with a special form of talk therapy, demonstrate distinct changes in their brains as well as improvement in their symptoms.

In the study, published in Translational Psychiatry, people with OCD underwent daily cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, to learn how to better resist compulsive behaviors and to decrease distress. Within one month, they had developed extensive increases in the strength of the connections between regions of their brains—which may reflect the participants gained new non-compulsive behaviors and thought patterns.

The results bolster the argument for making CBT more widely available for treating the disorder, which affects more than one in 50 people in the U.S. The study also could help guide future treatments that are faster or more effective, which would lower health care costs.

"The changes appeared to compensate for, rather than correct, underlying brain dysfunction," said Dr. Jamie Feusner, director of the Adult Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Program at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the study's senior author. "The findings open the door for future research, new treatment targets and new approaches."

OCD is a psychiatric condition in which a person has difficult-to-control, reoccurring thoughts, as well as the urge to repeat behaviors over and over. Common symptoms include fear of germs or contamination, unwanted or aggressive thoughts, and compulsions to clean, check or put things in order. It is typically treated with medication, psychotherapy or a combination of the two.

In the new study, UCLA researchers evaluated 43 people with OCD who received intensive CBT therapy (either immediately or after a four-week wait) and 24 people without OCD who were used as a comparison group.

All of the participants underwent scans with a neuroimaging tool called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or 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.

When the scientists compared the "before" and "after" brain scans of the participants who received CBT, they saw 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.

"The results could give hope and encouragement to OCD patients, showing them that CBT results in measurable changes in the brain that correlate with reduced symptoms," said Teena Moody, a UCLA research associate and the study's first author.