OCD Causes: Biological

We will cover in this article some of the most important biological causes of obsessive compulsive disorder.

A main biological factor for the appearance of OCD is an insufficient level of a brain chemical named serotonin. Serotonin is helps transmit signals between brain cells. Such a chemical is called a neurotransmitter. Serotonin helps regulate mood, pain, appetite, sleep and even to a lesser extent memory and learning. All drugs prescribed to treat obsessive compulsive disorder try to raise the level of serotonin. Such drugs are called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and are antidepressants that help make serotonin more available for nerve cells.

Another biological cause of obsessive compulsive disorder are changes in brain activity. Modern technology has helped scientists better study brain activity in OCD sufferers and they have concluded that such patients exhibit increased activity in three brain areas such as:

1. The caudate nucleus

The caudate nucleus is an area of the brain thought to be responsible regarding habit management, rituals and processing thoughts coming from other brain parts. Once and OCD sufferer starts treating himself successfully either through therapy or through medication the activity of this area starts to gradually decrease to a normal level. This is proof enough of the fact that both medication and therapy can alter the functioning of the brain.

2. The cingulate gyrus

This area of the brain is responsible for how a person responds emotionally to one’s own obsessions. In plain speak, this area responds to obsessions with compulsions. That’s how it knows to fight anxiety.

3. The prefrontal orbital cortex

The prefrontal orbital cortex is an area located in the front of the brain. This area is thought to be managing one’s social responses and social conditioning. Usually, when this area is damaged or displays lower than normal activity one shows increased feelings of guilt and lack of inhibition. On the contrary, increased activity may cause increased pondering over social issues such as acting in a perfect manner in social settings, looking clean and neat, etc. which are actually obsessive compulsive symptoms.

All of these three brain areas that we’ve covered above contain a large number of brain cells influenced by serotonin. As such, increasing the level of serotonin through medication such as SSRIs may help improve message transmission and relieve or heal OCD.

If you read the whole article by now, you may think that biologically, serotonin is key, which is pretty much true. But there’s another biological cause to obsessive compulsive disorder, especially in children. This cause is yet to be proven on a definite bases but it is good to state it nevertheless. It is thought that some children that get diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder might have gotten the disorder from a previous infection with a bacteria known as streptococcus, which is popularly known to cause a strep throat. The thinking goes that when developing a strep throat, the body will automatically develop antibodies to fight the infection but these antibodies may have the unwanted side effect of reacting negatively with the basal ganglia which, as stated above, plays an important role in OCD. Such a pattern hasn’t been noticed in people that began forming OCD as adults and it is also yet to be proven scientifically in children as well so take this whole paragraph with a grain of salt.

This concludes our article on the biological causes of OCD. If you want to add on top of what we wrote here or if you’d like to share your experience regarding the biological causes of obsessive compulsive disorder then don’t hesitate to post a comment.

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