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Prior promising results have been reported with deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the anterior limb of the internal capsule in cases with severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) who had exhausted conventional therapies.

In this pilot study, six adult patients (2 male; 4 female) meeting stringent criteria for severe (minimum Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale [Y-BOCS] of 28) and treatment-refractory OCD had DBS electrode arrays placed bilaterally in an area spanning the ventral anterior limb of the internal capsule and adjacent ventral striatum referred to as the ventral capsule/ventral striatum. Using a randomized, staggered-onset design, patients were stimulated at either 30 or 60 days following surgery under blinded conditions.

After 12 months of stimulation, four (66.7%) of six patients met a stringent criterion as “responders” (≥35% improvement in the Y-BOCS and …