OCD-lemma

Researchers from the hospital of Belltivge in Barcelona, Spain, in collaboration with experts from the Hospital del Mar and the University of Melbourne, Australia, had proven that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) present a major moral sensitivity; Charles Soriano, an investigator from Hospital del Mar and one of the authors of the publishing of this study states that these people who suffer from the previously mentioned anxiety disease show an even more worrisome behavior when they are exposed to a moral dilemma.

The researchers studied through functional magnetic resonance the neurofunctional basis of this increase in moral sensitivity in OCD patients; the brain activations in seventy-three people with this disorder and other seventy-three healthy patients were measured after they were exposed to several moral issues in which they had to choose either one or another dreadful consequence. Those situations were both extreme and trivial; for example, there was this very common problem presented in philosophy lessons in which a baby in times of war starts crying and that could cause that soldiers discover where the people are hiding, but covering the baby’s mouth would cause his or her death from asphyxia; on the other hand, this kind of dilemma was compared to minor ones such as choosing between going to the beach or to the countryside during the weekend.

Results showed that people with OCD suffered a major activation of their orbitofrontal cortex than the control group, especially in the medial area, which is related to decision making processes and the sense of morality. This information can lead for the first time to deal with the existence of brain dysfunctions related to complex cognitions and the mechanisms in the brain of an OCD patient.

Do you think these people should be treated in a different way just because of their condition? Why or why not?