The relationship between miRNAs and executive functions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: An exploratory analysis

Objective: Our study aimed to examine the relationship between the cognitive functions of patients with OCD, and the expression levels of 12 miRNAs that regulate glutamate and serotonin gene expressions.Method: Seventy patients with OCD and 35 age-and educational-matched healthy controls were included in the study.The Tower of London Test (ToL), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Trail Making Test (TMT), Stroop Test (ST), Digit Span Test (DST), and the Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) were performed on the participants.Twelve miRNA expression levels in the venous blood of the participants were detected using real-time polymerase chain reaction.Results: Abstraction, cognitive flexibility, psychomotor speed, and verbal fluency performances of patients with OCD were significantly worse than the healthy control group (p<0.05).miRNA 6740 expression levels were positively associated with ToL-total correct scores in the patients (p=0.010) and negatively associated with ST-interference duration in the healthy controls (p=0.020).Discussion: Our study indicates that patients with OCD have impairment of executive function, and miRNA-6740 expression levels may be related to executive functions both in patients with OCD and in general.The underlying mechanisms should be investigated in future studies to better understand the relationship of miRNA-6740-5p with cognitive functions.