A case-control study of sex differences in strategic processing and episodic memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Although clinical and genetic data for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) support the hypothesis of sexual dimorphism, the neuropsychological findings remain inconclusive. The aim of our study was to determine whether there are differences in cognitive performance between men and women with OCD as compared with healthy controls (HCs). A neuropsychological battery was administered to 50 patients with OCD (31 men and 19 women) and 50 HCs matched by sex, age, and educational level with patients. We evaluated intelligence, attention, episodic memory, and use of organizational strategies during encoding of verbal and nonverbal information. Male patients scored worse than controls did in measures of nonverbal memory tasks, whereas the cognitive performance of women with OCD was consistent with that of their HC counterparts. These results suggest a distinct pattern of cognitive dysfunction specific to the patients' sex.