Obsessive compulsive disorder and response inhibition: Meta-analysis of the stop-signal task.
- 1 February 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science
- Vol. 131 (2), 152-161
- https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000732
Abstract
This systematic review and meta-analysis updates evidence pertaining to response inhibition in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as measured by the stop-signal task (SST). We conducted a meta-analysis of the literature to compare response inhibition in patients with OCD and healthy controls, metaregressions to determine relative influences of age and sex on response inhibition performance, and a risk of bias assessment for included studies using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), which estimates the latency of the stopping process deficit, was significantly longer in OCD samples than in controls, reflecting inferior inhibitory control (Raw mean difference = 23.43 ms; p = <.001; 95% CI [17.42, 29.45]). We did not observe differences in mean reaction time (MRT) in OCD compared with controls (Raw mean difference = 2.51 ms; p = .755; 95% CI [-13.27, 18.30]). Reaction time variability (RTSD) was reported in one study only. Age impacted effect size of SSRT, indicating inferior performance in older OCD patients than younger ones. We did not observe a significant effect of sex on SSRT or MRT scores. General Scientific Summary Difficulty inhibiting responses is an hypothesized deficit in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis of studies using the Stop Signal task support the notion of impaired response inhibition in OCD and indicate that older individuals with OCD show greater impairment than younger ones.Keywords
Funding Information
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-93696, MOP-106573)
- TD Bank
- Alberta Innovates
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