Dr. Casey Halpern

And then there are projections to the subcortex.

This is the basal ganglia, like caudate, putamen, or the dorsal stratum, and these are interconnected with the ventral stratum.

This is an area of the brain that I focus a lot of my energy in.

This is the ventral stratum, which is not limited to, but includes the nucleus accumbens.

This is an area of the brain that

We know to be involved in gating reward-seeking behavior.

When it's perturbed, it seems to gate compulsive behavior, meaning a rat will pursue a reward despite punishment, despite a foot shock, for example.

And that can be similar to an OCD patient.

They will check their home for safety until 3 a.m.

in the morning and not sleep that night, doing something because of the urge, but despite the risk.

When our judgment is consistently sort of puts us at risk, that's where we have something like OCD.

Contamination behavior where if they feel contaminated, they will wash their hands for hours repeatedly, or if they drop their toothbrush on the floor, this will lead to a compulsive behavior of cleaning a toothbrush or brushing your teeth consistently.

Very, very common symptoms that we see or signs that the patients report to us or that we observe.

But patients with eating disorders, they tend to, if they have binge eating disorder, they'll overeat.

If they have bulimia, they might purge despite the risk of these things.

And so addiction is similar.

We tend to drug-seek if we're addicted.

We'll pay off a dealer in order to get our fix despite the risk.

And that type of urge despite the risk is something that I've always been really interested in.

And it's a common denominator to all of these problems.