An observational study in OCD and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine. Active, not recruiting at 3 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 21 Years to 70 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-09-02.
Sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine · Observational
The investigators propose to synchronize automated measurements of behavior - head, body, and face dynamics, gaze, and vocal prosody - with simultaneous recordings of brain activity in clinically relevant contexts.
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), University of Pittsburgh (UPitt) and Brown University will collaborate on this research project. BCM will be the only site that will enroll study subjects and perform study assessments. UPitt and Brown will supervise data management, measurement and modeling of multimodal signals and collaborate on research design and machine learning.
Following initial screening, subjects will participate in one testing session lasting about 2 hours. The addition of these preliminary studies will allow investigators to obtain information in order to differentiate and code OCD-distress versus social anxiety and identify rituals related to OCD.
Research Material, Data, and Information to be collected:
Interviews, rating scales, video, audio, behavioral assessments, and heart rate will be obtained.
Preliminary Testing in Un-implanted Subjects: Automated Behavioral Measures of OCD-related Distress (i.e., obsessions and urge to ritualize) and Overt Rituals:
The Provocation OC task (Provoc) and the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) will be used to evoke OC-related distress and anxiety unrelated to OCD (e.g., performance anxiety), respectively. These tasks will be preceded by a neutral baseline (the subject may be asked to describe how they traveled to the clinic to the experimenter) and a positive affect induction, the Broad-Minded Affective Coping procedure (BMAC) a clinical technique that uses recalled positive autobiographical memories and mental imagery to elicit positive affect. Because anxiety and negative affect may have carryover effects, neutral baseline and BMAC will be presented prior to the non-OCD and OCD distress inductions. In the BMAC, subjects will be instructed to recall and describe a recent positive memory/experience. The order of Provoc and TSST will be counterbalanced across the subjects. Use of a conveyor belt may be used during the Provoc tasks to present the evoking stimuli. Simultaneously recorded measures are noted in the Table attached in Section S and include: AFAR, new suite of behavioral measures (shown as shaded), hand/arm movements and heart rate.
A third provocation task will be added to elicit overt rituals (e.g., handwashing) in the clinic. It will occur following the BMAC and TSST/Provoc tasks and a relaxation break.
Subjects will be asked to wash their hands at a sink in our clinic inside an exam room where their behaviors will be recorded using hardware-synchronized cameras: one, to capture frontal view of the face for AFAR; and another, to record full body movement for CPM. The investigators are aware of only one prior study of automated coding of compulsive behavior. In that study, a computer vision approach was able to discriminate subjects with OCD from healthy subjects on the basis of handwashing videos in which regions of interest (ROIs) were defined for objects (e.g., soap dispenser) used for handwashing. The investigators will combine this ROI paradigm with a CPM approach that captures hand and body movements. Dropouts from the ritual paradigm will be replaced.
These same tasks will also be performed on up to 4 subjects that have consented to receive a DBS implant on a separate protocol. Informed consent will also be collected from these implanted subjects for the purpose of completing the tasks described above on this study.
635 studies on the registry are indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; 166 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 27 is below the median of 133 across 86 observational studies indexed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Browse Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder studies →Baylor College of Medicine is the lead sponsor of 747 studies on the registry; 110 are open to participants now.
Of its 84 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 45 (54%) have results posted.
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The primary source of OCD subjects will be self-referrals generated through BCM Clinicaltrials website, Clinicaltrials.gov, and BCM Psychiatry Clinic. The investigators also anticipate referrals from local area clinicians in addition to affiliate entities.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
OCD subjects:
Healthy Control Subjects:
Exclusion Criteria:
OCD Subjects:
Healthy Control Subjects:
- Those not meeting the inclusion criteria described in the inclusion section above.
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
The American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental health diagnoses. DSM-5 (2013, revised as DSM-5-TR in 2022) replaced DSM-IV, and some studies still name the older edition. “Meets DSM criteria for …” means diagnosed by that edition’s diagnostic criteria, usually by a clinician in an interview.
DSM diagnostic criteria
The American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental health diagnoses. DSM-5 (2013, revised as DSM-5-TR in 2022) replaced DSM-IV, and some studies still name the older edition. “Meets DSM criteria for …” means diagnosed by that edition’s diagnostic criteria, usually by a clinician in an interview.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Subjects meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria with OCD will be exposed to the following: * Provocation OC task (Provoc) * Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) * Exposure provocation task
Behavioral: Provocation OC task (Provoc) · Behavioral: Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) · Behavioral: Exposure provocation task
Subjects meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria without OCD (age and gender matched with OCD subjects) will be exposed to the following: * Provocation OC task (Provoc) * Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) * Exposure provocation task
Behavioral: Provocation OC task (Provoc) · Behavioral: Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) · Behavioral: Exposure provocation task
used to evoke OC-related distress
used to evoke anxiety unrelated to OCD (e.g., performance anxiety)
used to elicit overt OCD rituals
Change in brain activity
measured before, during and after PROVOC task, Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and exposure task
Time frame: baseline to Hour 2
Change in Heart Rate
measured before, during and after PROVOC task, Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and exposure task
Time frame: baseline to Hour 2
Plan to share: Undecided
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
Started Jun 2018 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Jul 2027, 109 months after the start.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Aug 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder →