The Psychiatric News June 6, 2008 edition reported of several studies that shed light on whether hoarding is a psychiatric illness. A study published in March 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry reported in the examined hoarding behavior in 219 families with a family history of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. They discovered that in families with at least two hoarding relatives there was a significant association with chromosome 14 compared to families with only one or no hoarders. Other studies have shown association to chromosome 3 and 9. A neuroimaging study in 2004 indicated that hoarding may be associated with a defect in the cingulated cortex. Another study in 2008 showed in hoarding patients “activation in the bilateral anterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex than did patients without hoarding symptoms and health controls”. Thirty to forty percent of patients with OCD have hoarding symptoms. One researcher stated that “compulsive hoarding being a distinct clinical syndrome, which is highly comorbid with OCD as well as with other forms of psychopathology, like social phobia.”
The Bottom Line: Studies indicate that compulsive hoarding is indeed a brain-based psychiatric disorder that appears quite commonly with OCD.
Sources: Psychiatric News
Dr. Jeffrey Speller
Dr. Tanya Korkosz
Psychopharmacology Associates
of New England
www.psychopharmassociates.com