Alterations in neurobiological mechanisms associated with decision-making in individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has been defined as a disorder of decision-making. We aim to characterize the behavior of patients with OCD when they have to make decisions and characterize the neurobiological mechanisms during that process. Consequently, we will conduct a study in which patients with OCD and healthy controls will perform the Balloon Analogue Risk Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) is a behavioral measure of decision-making that studies decision-making under ambiguity. In this task, participants can sequentially inflate a balloon or stop the play, earning money the more they inflate the balloon. When they inflate the balloon, this can either grow larger or explode (losing the money). The probability of explosion is higher the larger the balloon gets, without knowing the exact size at which the balloon will explode.

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S. Queirós, “Right ventricular segmentation in multi-view cardiac MRI using a unified U-net model”, in E. Puyol Antón et al. (eds) Statistical Atlases and Computational Models of the Heart. Multi-Disease, Multi-View, and Multi-Center Right Ventricular Segmentation in Cardiac MRI Challenge. STACOM 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13131, pp. 287-295, Springer, Cham, 2022.

“Best Paper Award in the M&Ms-2 Challenge”, by M&Ms2 Challenge organizers and the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) Society.

Main Project Outcomes

1. Ferreira, S., Couto, B., Sousa, M., Vieira, R., Sousa, N., Picó-Pérez, M., & Morgado, P. (2021). Stress Influences the Effect of Obsessive- Compulsive Symptoms on Emotion Regulation. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11(January), 1–9.