The Effect of Temperament on Neurocognitive Function in the Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

Background: Converging evidence revealed impaired cognitive function and distinct temperament pattern in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little is known about the relation between cognitive deficit and temperament in OCD. This study was aimed to investigate how temperament influences cognitive dysfunction in OCD. Methods: The participants included 103 patients with OCD and 63 healthy controls. Cognitive functions were measured by the Trail Making Test (TMT), letter fluency, category fluency, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Temperament was assessed by Cloningers Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). Results: OCD patients showed poor performance in neuropsychological tests related to psychomotor speed, verbal fluency and set-shifting abilities compared to the healthy controls. Regarding temperaments, the OCD patients showed significantly lower novelty seeking and reward dependence and higher harm avoidance than the healthy controls. Temperament pattern affected impaired neurocognitive functions after controlling symptom severity in the OCD patients. And reward dependence partially mediated group differences between patients and controls in psychomotor speed and verbal fluency performances. Conclusions: Cognitive impairment was influenced by temperament in the OCD patients regardless of their symptom severity. The present findings suggest that deficits of cognitive functions may be partially explained by temperamental traits of OCD patients.