Compulsive Behavior

Glutamate, GABA, and OCD — The Chemical Imbalance That Keeps Your Brain Hyperactive The relationship between glutamate and OCD is fundamentally a story of cortical hyperexcitation. 7-Tesla magnetic resonance spectroscopy has detected elevated glutamate and reduced GABA in the anterior cingulate cortex of individuals with OCD. The imbalance produces sustained firing in cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical loops — the circuits whose terminations a healthy brain can release. ...

Why OCD Gets Worse Over Time — The Neural Architecture of Compulsive Escalation OCD gets worse over time because the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical loop physically rewires each time a compulsion fires. The circuit follows Hebbian logic — neurons that fire together wire together — and the repetition shifts compulsions from anxiety-driven decisions in the ventral striatum to automatic motor programs in the dorsal striatum. The loop becomes harder to interrupt because it has become more efficient. ...