French scientists finds surprise solution to OCD

Paul Michaud, Contributor, Paris

Two French scientists say they have come up, quite accidentally, with a solution to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that involves implanting electrodes destined originally to control Parkinson's disease.

OCD, according to the U.S.-based Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Foundation, affects one adult in 50, with "twice that many experiencing it at some point in their lives."

The disorder manifests itself in a number of ways, with sufferers becoming so excessive in their behavior that they are known to spend hours washing their hands, or doing such things -- "which make no sense at all," says the OCD Foundation -- as "driving around and around the block to check whether an accident hasn't occurred."

It's as though the OCD sufferer's brain "gets stuck on a particular thought or urge and just can't let go." People with OCD often describe their symptoms "as a case of mental hiccups that won't go away."

OCD is, says the Foundation, a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information-processing, and is in no way the result of a "weak" or unstable personality, as was often thought in the past.

And although better treatment than ever is available to OCD sufferers, the disorder "is usually completely curable only in some individuals, with most people achieving meaningful and long- term symptom relief with comprehensive treatment."

Two French researchers with INSERM -- the Paris-based Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) -- say, however, that they've come up with a cure that could prove to be the much sought-after panacea to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. And, strangely enough, the cure they've come up with came quite accidentally as the two men -- Yves Agid and Luc Mallet -- were working on a solution to another often mysterious ailment, Parkinson's disease.

Agid and Mallet, both of whom work for INSERM's unit 299, say that the electrodes they implanted in two patients suffering from Parkinson's disease also happened to "reduce considerably the compulsions and obsessions" with which they were also affected.

And this, they say, because the electrodes were implanted in the part of the brain that controls the way our bodies move about. As a result, note Agid and Mallet, the electrodes "contributed to reducing the psychic suffering" of the two persons affected with Parkinson's disease.

Still much remains to be done, they caution, but they have obtained the all-important green light from the French Comite d'Ethique, the government-controlled body that must authorize any further research into such areas, and until further tests are done, the two researchers say that they will remain prudent as to any large-scale application of their techniques.