Speech graph analysis in obsessive-compulsive disorder: The relevance of dream reports.
Matilde Gomes, Maria Picó Pérez, Inês Castro, Pedro S Moreira, Sidarta Ribeiro, Natália B. Mota, Pedro Morgado
Journal of Psychiatric Research March 28, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2023.03.035 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case-control study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 76 |
| Population | Adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder and healthy controls |
| Measures | Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R), Yale Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) |
| Topics | Anxiety |
| Keywords | Humans Speech Compulsive behavior Obsessive-compulsive disorder Dreams Graph analysis |
| Key findings | Graph analysis of dream reports showed that OCD patients had smaller lexical diversity, lower speech connectedness, and higher word recurrence than healthy controls, while the other five report types showed no group differences. The authors propose that dream reports may be especially informative of speech structure in psychiatric states. |
Abstract
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a distressing disorder characterized by the presence of intrusive thoughts, images or urges (obsessions) and/or behavioral efforts to reduce the anxiety (compulsions). OCD lifetime prevalence varies between 1% and 3% in the general population and there are no reliable markers that support the diagnosis. In order to fill this gap, Computational Psychiatry employs multiple types of quantitative analyses to improve the understanding, diagnosis, prediction, and treatment of mental illnesses including OCD. One of these computational tools is speech graphs analysis. A graph represents a network of nodes connected by edges: in non-semantic speech graphs, nodes correspond to words and edges correspond to the directed link between consecutive words. Using non-semantic speech graphs, we compared free speech samples from OCD patients and healthy controls (HC), to test whether speech graphs analysis can grasp structural differences in speech between these groups. To this end, 39 OCD patients and 37 HC were interviewed and recorded during six types of speech reports: yesterday, dream, old memory, positive image, negative image and neutral image. Also, the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) and the Yale Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) were used to assess symptom severity. The graph-theoretical structural analysis of dream reports showed that OCD patients have significantly smaller lexical diversity, lower speech connectedness and a higher recurrence of words in comparison with HC. The other five report types failed to show differences between the groups, adding to the notion that dream reports are especially informative of speech structure in different psychiatric states. Further investigation is necessary to completely assess the potential of this tool in OCD.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on anxiety, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effectiveness of a meditation-based stress reduction program in the treatment of anxiety disorders Patients with generalized anxiety disorder or panic disorder with or without agoraphobia | 1992 | Observational cohort | n = 22 |
| Antidepressant effects of a single dose of ayahuasca in patients with recurrent depression: a preliminary report Patients with a depressive disorder | 2015 | Observational study | |
| Patterning of Cognitive and Somatic Processes in the Self-Regulation of Anxiety: Effects of Meditation versus Exercise Regular practitioners of physical exercise or meditation | 1978 | Retrospective study | n = 77 |
| Dynamic coupling of whole-brain neuronal and neurotransmitter systems Healthy humans | 2020 | Observational study | |
| Psychedelics not linked to mental health problems or suicidal behavior: A population study Randomly selected United States adults | 2015 | Observational cohort | n = 135,095 |