Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Aug 19, 2025; 15(8): 107860
Published online Aug 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i8.107860
Decreased inter- and intra-network connectivity after group cognitive behavioral therapy in patients with unmedicated obsessive-compulsive disorder
Zong-Feng Zhang, Yan He, Yu-Qiu Su, Ji-Meng Liu
Zong-Feng Zhang, Yan He, Yu-Qiu Su, Ji-Meng Liu, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China
Zong-Feng Zhang, Yan He, Yu-Qiu Su, Ji-Meng Liu, Department of Psychiatry, Ningbo Kangning Hospital, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Zong-Feng Zhang and Yan He.
Author contributions: Zhang ZF and He Y contributed to data analysis and manuscript drafting; Liu JM was responsible for research design and overall supervision; and Su YQ conducted the research implementation and sample evaluations; All authors advised upon, edited, and reviewed the manuscript.
Supported by the Pharmaceutical Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Province, No. 2023RC266; and the Natural Science Foundation of Ningbo, No. 202003N4266.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University (NBKNYY-2021-LC-5).
Informed consent statement: All participants were signed informed consent forms.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The datasets utilized and examined in this investigation are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request at 13216645323@163.com.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ji-Meng Liu, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. 1 Zhuangyu South Road, Zhuangshi Sub-District, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China. 13216645323@163.com
Received: April 22, 2025
Revised: May 20, 2025
Accepted: June 13, 2025
Published online: August 19, 2025
Processing time: 108 Days and 1.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study demonstrated that group cognitive behavioral therapy (GCBT) reduced resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) within and between the default mode (DMN) and dorsal attention networks (DAN) in patients with unmedicated obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These connectivity changes correlated with improved executive function, memory, and visuospatial abilities, suggesting reduced DMN/DAN rs-FC as a potential neuroimaging marker for predicting GCBT efficacy in OCD treatment.