This study explored Internet addiction among university students in China and the United States to develop a better understanding of Internet addiction in a cross-national setting. Three hundred fourteen respondents were evaluated on 10 Internet addiction symptoms and five Internet addiction dimensions: negative outcomes, social escape, secretive behavior, virtual intimacy, and obsessive-compul...

The effectiveness of Fluvoxamine was compared to that of Cognitive Therapy (CT) in a 12-week randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 48 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), who were treatment-resistant to a previous behavior therapy (BT). A considerable amount of patients did not comply with the assigned treatment and switched treatments. The aim of this study was to identify patient...

UNLABELLED The potential adverse consequences, personal distress, shame and guilt presented by patients who suffer from sexual addiction require a more in-depth understanding of the phenomenology and psychobiology of this disorder. METHODS A bibliographic review was conducted using MEDLINE and EBSCO databases with the following keywords: "sexual addiction," "hypersexuality," "compulsive sexua...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common psychiatric disorder characterized by the occurrence of obsessions and compulsions. Glutamatergic abnormalities have been related to the pathophysiology of OCD. Cannabinoids inhibit glutamate release in the central nervous system, but the involvement of drugs targeting the endocannabinoid system has not yet been tested in animal models of repetiti...

Obsessive slowness is described to be a syndrome of extreme slowness in ways various tasks are performed. Its existence as an independent syndrome is challenged by authors, who regard it to be a part of obsessive compulsive disorder. Behavioural techniques of prompting, pacing and shaping are recommended for treatment of this condition. We describe here a case of a 21 year old male patient who ...

Compulsive buying is a relatively new addictive disorder that interferes with everyday functioning and may result in serious psychological and financial problems (1). A very few data are currently available regarding this behavioral addiction. This study investigated gender differences in the relationships between contingent self-esteem (CSE), fear of negative evaluation (FNE), and compulsive b...

The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is a widely used instrument to assess obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. The present study provides evidence that the Y-BOCS is best represented by a three-dimensional model comprising severity of obsessions (factor 1), severity of compulsions (factor 2) and resistance to symptoms (factor 3). On the basis of exploratory factor analysis, this ...

Dopamine is widely associated with reward, motivation, and reinforcement learning. Research on dopamine has emphasized its contribution to compulsive behaviors, such as addiction and overeating, with less examination of its potential role in behavioral flexibility in normal, non-pathological states. In the study reviewed here, we investigated the effect of increased tonic dopamine in a two-leve...

Compulsive hoarding is a disabling psychological disorder characterized by excessive collecting and saving behavior. This article reviews four key areas of recent advances in hoarding research. First, we provide an overview of the evolving controversy regarding the diagnostic status of hoarding, highlighting accumulating evidence that it may be best conceptualized as a separate syndrome. Second...

Life events related to the female hormonal cycle may trigger the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or exacerbate symptoms in women already suffering from it. These observations suggest a possible role for ovarian hormones in the course of this disorder. Yet, the mechanisms that may subserve the modulatory effect of ovarian hormones are currently unknown. The aim of the present study ...