People with diverse compulsion disorders have similar decision and brain patterns

A new study finds people with compulsion disorders such as substance abuse, binge eating and obsessive compulsive disorder have similar patterns of decision making and brain structures.

Reporting their findings in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, the researchers explain how they discovered people affected by disorders of compulsivity tend towards automatic habitual choices than goal-directed behaviors. Plus, they also have lower grey matter volumes - which indicates fewer brain cells - in brain regions that help track goals and rewards.

First author Dr. Valerie Voon, honorary consultant neuropsychiatrist and Wellcome Trust Fellow with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge in the UK, says:

"Seemingly diverse choices - drug taking, eating quickly despite weight gain, and compulsive cleaning or checking - have an underlying common thread: rather that a person making a choice based on what they think will happen, their choice is automatic or habitual."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277517.php