ABSTRACT
Objective To study the relationship between executive function and glial cell line-de-rived neurotrophic factor(GDNF) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder(OCD). Methods Totally 64 patients with OCD and 61 healthy controls were enrolled. The levels of serum GDNF were measured by en-zyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST) was used to assess the ex-ecutive function of the subjects. Yale-Brown obsessive compulsive scale ( Y-BOCS) was used to assess ob-sessive-compulsive symptoms. Results The patients with OCD(62. 67±8. 48)showed significantly poorer performance than healthy controls on the correct score of WCST(71. 16±7. 24)(P<0. 05),but the errors and non-persistent errors scores(52. 81±8. 39,31. 05±8. 46)were significantly higher than that in healthy con-trols (44. 79±7. 69,26. 57±7. 76)(P<0. 05). The level of serum GDNF in OCD group ((5. 64±1. 01) pg/ml)was significantly lower than that in control group ((6. 99±0. 94) pg/ml). There was a negative cor-relation between the number of non-persistent errors and the level of GDNF in OCD group( r=-0. 304,P=0. 015). The correct number and classification of WCST were negatively correlated with the scores of Y-BOCS(t=-0. 546,-0. 758,P<0. 05),the error of WCST were positively correlated to the scores of Y-BOCS(t=0. 616,P<0. 05). Conclusion These findings suggest that patients with OCD have executive dysfunction. The level of GDNF may be involved in the pathogenesis of OCD,which may be associated with the executive dysfunction in OCD patients.