Orchard OCD Research Podcast

When previous OCD treatments have let someone down, what can specialist care do differently?In Episode 7 of The OCD Research Podcast, Lynne Drummond joins Christian and Andrew to discuss severe and refractory OCD, drawing on her work developing specialist services in the UK.Lynne describes treatment that looks closely at the individual: what has been tried, what has stood in the way, and what support is needed to restore everyday functioning. The discussion extends beyond symptom scores to relationships, independence and the activities OCD can take away.In this conversation:- What “refractory” OCD means and why the language of treatment failure matters.- Individualised exposure and response prevention (ERP) and medication review.- Practical activities, peer support and rebuilding daily life.- Home visits and carrying improvements into the home environment.- Depression and other co-occurring difficulties.- How stereotypes and unequal access delay appropriate care.Christian and Andrew share their own experiences, while Lynne offers a message of persistence and hope grounded in specialist clinical work.Recorded ahead of the June 2026 Orchard OCD International Scientific Conference. Subscribe for more conversations connecting research, care and lived experience.#OCD #OCDTreatment #ERPResourcesLynne Drummond — Orchard OCD profile:https://www.orchardocd.org/employees/lynne-drummond-mbchb-mrcp-frcpsych/Lynne Drummond — research publications:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lynne-DrummondHelp support OCD research by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:https://orchardocdregistry.org/Learn more about Orchard OCD:https://www.orchardocd.org/

Does OCD change the brain, does the brain contribute to OCD—or can both be true?In Episode 6 of The OCD Research Podcast, Amsterdam-based psychiatrist and neuroscientist Odile van den Heuvel joins Christian and Andrew to make brain imaging more understandable.Odile explains why differences between research groups do not automatically translate into a diagnosis from an individual scan. She discusses how findings can vary across development and illness duration, and why researchers must distinguish possible causes from consequences of living with OCD.In this conversation:- MRI, functional MRI, PET and EEG: what each approach measures.- Brain structure, activity and communication between regions.- Why group-level findings matter even without an individual diagnostic scan.- How repeated behaviours and treatment can shape the brain.- Connections between symptom patterns and brain circuits.- Research pairing targeted magnetic stimulation with exposure therapy.The hosts bring questions from lived experience, including why OCD can feel less intrusive during urgent or deeply absorbing activities. Odile connects these experiences with questions about attention, flexibility and brain networks.Recorded ahead of the June 2026 Orchard OCD International Scientific Conference. Subscribe for more conversations about OCD research.#OCD #BrainImaging #OCDResearchResourcesOdile van den Heuvel — Amsterdam UMC research profile:https://pure.amsterdamumc.nl/en/persons/odile-van-den-heuvel-2Help support OCD research by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:https://orchardocdregistry.org/Learn more about Orchard OCD:https://www.orchardocd.org/

When does gathering more information stop being useful—and start keeping us stuck?In Episode 5 of The OCD Research Podcast, Tobias Hauser from the University of Tübingen joins Christian and Andrew to discuss the science of indecisiveness in OCD.Using examples from everyday choices and game-based research, Tobias explains how computational models can help researchers move from describing a symptom to investigating the processes behind it. He discusses work combining laboratory studies, the Brain Explorer app and neuroimaging, and the ambition to use those findings to develop more targeted interventions.In this conversation:- Why indecisiveness deserves attention in OCD research.- What computational psychiatry means in practice.- Tasks that study information gathering and the decision to act.- How behavioural findings can be connected with brain signals.- The strengths and limits of self-report measures.- Why fundamental research and lived-experience collaboration matter.The episode follows the research journey from doubt as a lived experience to possible mechanisms that future treatments could address.Recorded ahead of the June 2026 Orchard OCD International Scientific Conference. Subscribe for more accessible explanations of OCD science.#OCD #OCDResearch #ComputationalPsychiatryResourcesTobias Hauser — University Hospital Tübingen:https://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/de/das-klinikum/mitarbeiter/profil/5198Developmental Computational Psychiatry Lab — research:https://devcompsy.org/research/Help support OCD research by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:https://orchardocdregistry.org/Learn more about Orchard OCD:https://www.orchardocd.org/

How does OCD treatment change when a family member becomes part of the inpatient programme?In Episode 4 of The OCD Research Podcast, Professor Janardhan Reddy from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, joins Christian and Andrew to discuss intensive OCD care in India.Reddy describes a programme in which patients stay in hospital with a relative and receive regular therapist-assisted CBT with exposure and response prevention (ERP), alongside medication review and support for other difficulties. He explains how this setting can provide time to understand why previous treatment has not helped sufficiently.In this conversation:- What inpatient OCD treatment involves.- Why families take part and how accommodation can maintain symptoms.- Supporting exposure practice beyond sessions with a therapist.- Addressing depression and other co-occurring conditions.- The place of brain stimulation within a broader treatment programme.- How resources and access shape treatment choices in India.The discussion highlights the importance of accessible, skilled therapy and of treating the whole person, including their preferences and circumstances.Recorded ahead of the June 2026 Orchard OCD International Scientific Conference. Subscribe for more perspectives on OCD research and care.#OCD #ERP #OCDTreatmentResourcesJanardhan Reddy — NIMHANS Centre for Brain and Mind:https://www.cbmnimhans.org/hi/team/dr-yc-janardhan-reddyHelp support OCD research by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:https://orchardocdregistry.org/Learn more about Orchard OCD:https://www.orchardocd.org/

Why do antidepressants help some people with OCD — and why, after decades of research, do we still not fully understand how?

In Episode 3 of The OCD Research Podcast, Dr Chris Pittenger from Yale University joins Christian and Andrew to explore what we really know about medication for OCD, from the discovery of serotonin-based treatments to psychedelics and possible future approaches.

Chris explains why the familiar idea that psychiatric conditions are simply caused by a “chemical imbalance” is far too simplistic. SSRIs increase serotonin relatively quickly, but improvements in OCD symptoms usually take weeks to emerge, suggesting that the important changes involve how the brain adapts over time rather than simply “correcting” a serotonin deficiency.

They discuss:

• why serotonin became central to OCD treatment largely through serendipitous discoveries
• what neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, glutamate and GABA actually do
• why SSRIs help roughly half of people with OCD, while other antidepressants may not
• how medication can sometimes reduce symptoms directly — or make it easier to engage with ERP
• why medication should be viewed as one tool among many, rather than the whole answer
• the growing interest in psilocybin and other psychedelics as potential treatments
• Yale’s placebo-controlled study of high-dose psilocybin for OCD, currently available as a preprint, in which Chris describes promising responses in around 60% of participants, including a small number of particularly striking responses
• the possibility of using blood tests, genetics, brain imaging or psychological measures to better predict which treatment is most likely to help each person
• and why histamine, better known for its role in allergies, might eventually provide another target for new OCD treatments.

The conversation also looks beyond medication alone. Chris describes a future in which pharmacological treatments, psychotherapy, brain stimulation and other approaches could be combined more intelligently and more personally — matching the right tools to the right person.

His central message is simple: medication can be an important tool for OCD, but it is not a silver bullet.

Resources

Chris Pittenger — Yale University:
https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/christopher-pittenger/

Pittenger Lab:
https://medicine.yale.edu/lab/pittlab/

Yale high-dose psilocybin OCD trial preprint:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6218466

Francisco Moreno’s early psilocybin/OCD study (2006):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17196053/

Help support OCD research by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:
https://orchardocdregistry.org/

Learn more about Orchard OCD:
https://www.orchardocd.org/

ERP is the gold-standard psychological treatment for OCD — but why does it still fail to help so many people?

In Episode 2 of The OCD Research Podcast, Columbia University child and adolescent psychiatrist Kate Fitzgerald joins Christian and Andrew to explore what brain imaging can teach us about why some people respond to exposure and response prevention (ERP) while others do not.

Kate introduces the idea of cognitive control — the set of mental processes that can help someone experience fear or an obsessive thought, resist the urge to perform a compulsion, and “feel the fear but do it anyway”. Her research uses functional MRI to investigate the brain networks involved in cognitive control and whether strengthening them could ultimately make ERP more effective.

They discuss:

• Why almost half of patients may fail to respond even to expert-delivered ERP
• What cognitive control is and why it may be important for resisting compulsions
• The cingulopercular and frontoparietal brain networks involved in cognitive control
• A video-game-based cognitive training programme being tested in children with OCD
• Why OCD symptoms can sometimes seem to disappear during highly engaging or urgent situations
• How attention, motivation and the brain’s default mode network might help explain this effect
• Research into transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for people whose OCD has not responded to existing treatments
• How EEG and real-time fMRI neurofeedback could potentially be used to help people learn to engage cognitive-control networks more effectively

The conversation also explores a broader idea: new treatments may not need to replace ERP. Instead, approaches such as cognitive training, TMS or neurofeedback might one day help strengthen the mental processes people need to engage with ERP successfully.

As Kate puts it, we are learning more and more about the brain — and that could eventually lead to a wider range of treatments for people who do not benefit enough from those currently available.

Resources

Kate Fitzgerald — Columbia University:
https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/kate-d-fitzgerald-md

Fitzgerald Lab:
https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/research-labs/fitzgerald-lab

Learn more about Orchard OCD:
https://www.orchardocd.org/

Explore more talks and conversations from the 2026 Orchard OCD International Scientific Conference:
https://app.orchardocd.org/education

Could one of the biggest contributors to OCD risk be written in our DNA?

In Episode 1 of The OCD Research Podcast, geneticist Nora Strom joins Christian and Andrew to explore what the largest-ever genetic study of OCD can tell us about the disorder — and, just as importantly, what it cannot.

Nora explains how genome-wide association studies work, how analysing DNA from tens of thousands of people led researchers to identify 30 regions of the genome associated with OCD, and why these findings are useful for understanding OCD at a population level but cannot currently predict whether an individual will develop the disorder.

They also discuss:

• Why genetic factors are estimated to account for around 40–50% of variation in OCD risk
• Why a high genetic risk is a probability, not a certainty — “genetics is never destiny”
• The genetic overlap between OCD, tic disorders, anorexia nervosa and anxiety disorders
• What genetics can tell us about OCD symptoms existing on a spectrum
• How genes and environment interact
• Why current genetic datasets need much greater representation beyond people of European ancestry
• The ethical implications and historical misuse of genetic research
• Why finding genes associated with OCD is only the beginning of understanding how they affect the brain and behaviour

Along the way, a vegan-restaurant analogy helps explain why genetic studies can reveal patterns across thousands of people without necessarily allowing us to make predictions about one individual.

Nora’s central message is clear: genetics is an important piece of the OCD puzzle, but it is only one part of a much more complex picture.

Resources

Nora Strom — University Hospital Würzburg:
https://www.ukw.de/en/psychiatry/team/

ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nora-Strom

Largest OCD genome-wide association study, Nature Genetics (2025):
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02189-z

Help make OCD research faster and more representative by joining the Orchard OCD Registry:
https://orchardocdregistry.org/

Learn more about Orchard OCD:
https://www.orchardocd.org/

What is OCD, what does effective treatment look like, and why do we still need better research?

In this introductory episode, we meet the team behind the podcast and explain what this series is all about. We introduce some of the basics of OCD and exposure and response prevention (ERP), discuss why evidence-based research matters, and explore where current treatments still fall short.

Chiara, Andrew, Christian and Martin also share their different perspectives on OCD, bringing together lived experience, research and advocacy, and introduce the work of Orchard OCD and its mission to support research into better treatments.

This episode sets the scene for the conversations to come: interviews with leading OCD researchers from around the world, covering everything from psychological therapies and medication to neuroscience, brain stimulation, psychedelics and emerging approaches to understanding and treating OCD.

Find out more about orchard OCD following the link https://www.orchardocd.org/