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?
