Welcome from the OCD Research Lab Director
One of the biggest misconceptions about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is that it is merely a personality quirk. As a clinical psychiatrist and researcher, I see firsthand the impact OCD has on people like Jerry, whose OCD symptoms cost him jobs and relationships.
For half of newly diagnosed adults, standard recommended treatments for OCD (medications and cognitive behavioral therapy) will help them achieve a meaningful reduction in their symptoms. That’s good news for those suffering. But the other half continue to have symptoms that can limit their lives.
Our lab studies new pathways that have the potential to rapidly (within hours) relieve OCD symptoms. We also work to understand how we can target treatment to brain OCD circuits. While we have made some important advances, we need additional research to discover novel treatments that will effectively prevent or treat OCD. This OCD research may also positively impact treatments for depression, anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, hoarding disorder, and many other serious mental illnesses, because underlying brain circuit abnormalities may be shared across diagnoses. One example of this research is our ongoing partnership in the Human Neural Circuitry (HNC) Program the HNC Program uses a unique high-powered data-gathering infrastructure to process and study brain activity in real time and pools the expertise of a cross-section of brain specialists — psychiatrists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists and bioengineers.
Unfortunately, there is, on average, a 17-year delay between the onset of OCD symptoms and treatment initiation. We aim to apply generative artificial intelligence (AI) to augment timely and accurate clinical diagnosis through our partnership with the Stanford Center for Digital Health. A more thorough understanding of the potential role of AI in automating aspects of mental health care is urgently needed, particularly as the demand increases for real-world implementation in clinical settings. One example is our study showing large language models (LLMs) outperform mental and medical health care professionals in identifying OCD. We will continue to rigorously study sensitivity, specificity, test-retest reliability, and other key needs before the application of untested technologies in clinical settings; particularly to ensure HIPAA compliance, awareness of potential biases or inaccuracies, and ensuring oversight of AI-driven clinical decision support.
We are a village of interdisciplinary team members and community partners who highly value team science. Our goal is to innovate targeted, rapid-acting treatments and to drive insights into the brain basis of OCD and related disorders to bring compassionate relief to the suffering of patients. Our mission is to lead cutting-edge, high-quality research studies that accelerate and transform treatments for severe mental illness.
If you would like to participate in a research study or join our team, we encourage you to reach out to ocdresearch@stanford.edu or call us at 650-497-2577.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Rodriguez, MD, PhD
Director, OCD Translational Therapeutics Lab
Professor and Associate Dean
Stanford School of Medicine