Researchers have gained new insight into the cognitive and computational process underlying obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Specifically, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder may distrust their past experience, resulting in increased indecisiveness, uncertainty and exploratory behaviors, according to study findings published in PLoS Computational Biology.

“In contrast to a common preconception, our study suggests that compulsions in OCD (eg, checking) are not necessarily an irrational repetition of purposeless behaviors,” Isaac Fradkin, PhD, of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Healio Psychiatry. “Rather, they may be better understood as a rational reaction when the environment is perceived as highly unpredictable. Further, we found that obsessive-compulsive symptoms are related to an impaired ability to rely on the past (eg, the knowledge that I just turned off the lights) to infer the present and future (eg, assuming that the lights are off although I am no longer in the room).”