Neurocognitive and Clinical Correlates of Compulsive Hoarding

Researchers have reported that compulsive hoarding is associated with neurocognitive deficits. In this study, tests of general and working memory, attention, and executive control were administered to individuals recruited from the general population in Istanbul, Turkey obtaining markedly elevated scores on a self-administered measure of compulsive hoarding behaviour and matched controls. Participants also completed self-administered inventories assessing executive dyscontrol, disinhibition, inattention, hyperactivity, depressive and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, and schizotypal personality (SP) characteristics. A measure of major psychiatric syndromes was also administered. Unexpectedly, individuals reporting elevated levels of compulsive hoarding behaviour and control subjects matched for age, educational level, and gender did not obtain significantly different scores on almost all neurocognitive tasks administered. On several neuropsychological tests (i.e., measures of attention, non-verbal memory, and working memory) individuals reporting elevated levels of hoarding behaviour achieved higher scores (including significantly greater scores on delayed non-verbal recall). In contrast, compulsive hoarders obtained significantly greater scores on self-administered inventories of executive dyscontrol, disinhibition, depressive and OC symptoms, and SP characteristics relative to controls. Interestingly, groups did not differ on a measure of major axis-I disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A substantially greater number of compulsive hoarders, however, met diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Compulsive hoarding was not associated with deficits on neurocognitive tasks. However, hoarding was related to GAD and higher scores on self- administered inventories of cognitive dysfunction, disinhibition, depressive and OC symptoms, and SP characteristics relative to matched controls. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation in Turkey of the neurocognitive correlates of compulsive hoarding.