Help for obsessive compulsive disorder

PARIS, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- French neurosurgeons say precisely applied deep brain stimulation may help curb unwanted repetitive behaviors.

Luc Mallet and colleagues at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research, headquartered in Paris, conducted a clinical trial of the technique in patients for whom other treatments have not helped severe obsessive compulsive disorder -- a psychiatric disorder marked by hours-long anxiety-reducing rituals such as hand washing.

Patients divided among 10 university hospitals received surgical implantation of an electrode in a precisely mapped area of the brain that over the course of 10 months was activated and then deactivated in a randomly determined order. Eight patients underwent a period of active stimulation followed by a period of "placebo" stimulation while eight others received "placebo" stimulation followed by real stimulation.

"This was a double blind test -- neither the patients nor the doctors knew the periods of stimulation," Mallet said in a statement.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that at the end of three months of active stimulation, seven patients out of 10 lost more than one-quarter of their symptoms and six out of 10 reached satisfactory overall functioning. Twelve percent reached satisfactory overall functioning with placebo stimulation.