Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients are impaired in remembering temporal order and in judging their own performance

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been related to frontostriatal dysfunction, but some inconsistencies between studies and a relative paucity of neuropsychological research still characterizes the study of OCD. We compared 28 patients with OCD and matched healthy controls on two neuropsychological tests sensitive to frontal dysfunction: temporal ordering and a "feeling-of-doing'' (FOD) judgment about ordering. The OCD group performed significantly worse than controls in the temporal ordering task despite showing normal recognition memory. Patients were also impaired in "feeling-of-doing'' judgments suggesting they have a lack of self-awareness of their performance. Thus, the results of the current study reinforces previous research that indicates that OCD patients fail on tasks that require adequate functioning of the frontal-striatal pathways.