OCD patients were less successful at lowering the emotional impact of negative images.

There were no significant between-group differences in brain activation.

HC had increased frontoparietal connectivity when experiencing negative emotions.

Contrarily, patients had increased frontoparietal connectivity during regulation.

Frontoparietal connectivity was correlated with regulation success and OCD symptoms.

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) present increased brain activity in orbitofrontal and limbic regions when experiencing negative emotions, which could be related to deficits in emotion regulation abilities. 30 OCD patients and 29 healthy controls (HC) performed a cognitive reappraisal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task and completed emotion regulation and OCD symptomatology questionnaires. Besides task activation, connectivity was also compared between groups through psychophysiological interaction analysis (PPI), using regions previously reported to be hyperactive in OCD as seeds. Finally, brain-behavior correlations were performed between activation/connectivity strength in group differential regions and the questionnaires’ scores, as well as the emotional ratings reported during the task. Behaviorally, patients with OCD were less successful than controls at lowering the emotional impact of negative images. At the brain level, there were no significant between-group differences in brain activation. Contrarily, PPI analyses showed that HC had increased frontoparietal connectivity when experiencing negative emotions in comparison to OCD patients, while this pattern was reversed when regulating emotions (increased connectivity in patients). Finally, frontoparietal connectivity was correlated with measures of emotion regulation success and OCD symptomatology. Our findings point towards frontoparietal altered connectivity as a potential compensatory mechanism during emotion regulation in OCD patients.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

fMRI

Cognitive reappraisal

Psychophysiological interaction analysis

Frontoparietal network

Emotion regulation

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.