The putative catalytic role of higher serotonin bioavailability in the clinical response to exposure and response prevention in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Objective: Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is effective to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but the lack of tolerance to the aversion nature of exposure techniques results in a high drop-out rate. There have been reports of a generic stress endurance effect of serotonin (5-HT) in the central nervous system (CNS) which might be explained by suppression of defensive fixed action patterns. Previous studies have proposed that higher baseline 5-HT concentration and slow decrease in concentration during drug treatment of OCD were predictors of good clinical response to 5-HT reuptak...