Windows into OCD

To address the unmet need for more effective and safer treatments for OCD and related disorders, Dr. Ahmari aims to identify novel molecular, cellular, and circuit targets that cause the alterations in the brain that lead to abnormal repetitive and compulsive behaviors. To accomplish this goal, her research program integrates basic neuroscience approaches and cutting-edge technology with clinical studies of OCD patients to map patterns of neural activity and molecular changes related to compulsive behaviors and anxiety. In this talk, Dr. Ahmari will discuss studies in mice that dissect circuits underlying compulsive behavior initiation and behavior termination. She will also describe her research program’s interdisciplinary efforts to ground their basic neuroscience experiments in findings from clinical and post-mortem studies. Finally, she will present early results from collaborative translational studies in humans with compulsive behaviors.