M. Cano, Spain

University Hospital Parc Tauli Mental Health
I initiated my collaboration with the Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Psychiatry Department of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL during my MSc internship. This first stage in the group allowed me to acquire knowledge and in-group work skills and to increase my motivation and interest towards the use of neuroimaging tools to study the neurobiological correlates of mental disorders. One year later, I received a pre-doctoral scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU13/02141). During my PhD I obtained an International Travel Fellowship from the University of Barcelona having the chance to perform one research stay of three months in the Laboratory for Neuropsychiatry & Neuromodulation at Harvard Medical School. Moreover, I received a Mobility Prize from the Harvard Medical School allowing me to conduct a second research stay of five months in such a prestigious group. In November 2018 I obtained my international PhD degree with the highest grade of Excellent cum laude. Since November 2018, I started a new professional stage at the Parc Taulí Foundation, where I work as a postdoctoral researcher. Recently, I received a postdoctoral grant from the Carlos III Health Institute (Sara Borrell; CD20/00189). During my short research career, I have been listed as a main author and a co-author in thirteen relevant publications (ten of them from the first quartile), I have collaborated in 4 competitive research projects (one of them international), I have participated in 3 national and 9 international congresses (selected in five of them for an oral communication) and I have given more than 200 hours of official teaching at the University of Barcelona, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. My primary interest is focused on understanding the impact of neuromodulatory therapies on patients with mental disorders with the final aim to develop a personalized prediction model of treatment response. Currently, I am still closely collaborating with Dr. Camprodon at Harvard Medical School, I am a member of the Global ECT-MRI Research Collaboration (achieving so far two peer-reviewed publications), the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics Through Meta Analysis network (ENIGMA) and the Consorcio CIBER para el área temática de salud mental (G-17 CIBER Research Group) and I am PhD Supervisor.

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 Conference Calendar
Oral Communications (ID 1110) AS24. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

O190 - Neurofunctional predictive biomarkers of cognitive-behavioral therapy during fear conditioning in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Session Name
Oral Communications (ID 1110)
Date
Sat, 10.04.2021
Session Time
07:00 - 21:00
Room
On Demand
Lecture Time
11:48 - 12:00
Presenter

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Altered fear learning processes could be mechanistically linked to the development and/or maintenance of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). From a clinical perspective, the first-line psychological treatment for OCD is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which is based on the principles of fear learning. However, no previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have evaluated the predictive capacity of regional brain activations during fear learning on CBT response in patients with OCD.

Objectives

We aimed at exploring whether brain activation during fear learning in patients with OCD are associated with CBT outcome.

Methods

We assessed 18 patients with OCD and 18 healthy participants during a 2-day experimental protocol where brain activation and skin conductance responses (SCR) where assessed during fear conditioning, extinction learning, and extinction recall within the fMRI scanner. Following the protocol, patients with OCD received CBT.

Results

We found non-significant between-group differences in SCR during fear learning. Patients with OCD showed significantly diminished activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the right insula during fear conditioning. Importantly, our analyses revealed a significant negative association between clinical improvement after CBT and activity at the right insula during fear conditioning (x = 39, y = 12, z = -11; t = 5.64; p<0.001; k = 928). This finding is displayed in Figure 1 below.

figure 1.png

Conclusions

Patients with OCD may require less fear-conditioned brain responses to achieve the same level of psychophysiological fear conditioning as healthy participants. Interestingly, insula activations during fear-conditioned responses may represent a potential predictor biomarker of response to CBT for OCD.

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