Background: Several clinical and genetic studies have focused on the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the pathophysiology of various mental disorders. Recent lines of evidence regarding the network hypothesis of treatment outcome point towards the involvement of BDNF variants in the pharmacologic response in mood disorders (MD). Furthermore, there is strong evidence of a role for the serotonergic system in the pathophysiology and treatment of OCD, and upregulation of BDNF has been observed with various classes of antidepressants, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). Thus, we hypothesized that the BDNF gene might also be associated with treatment outcome in OCD.
Methods: We performed a single-marker and haplotype association study of eight tag single nucleotide polymorphisms in the BDNF genomic region and related this to pharmacologic response in a sample of 131 OCD patients.
Results: We found an association for a haplotype containing two single nucleotide polymorphisms that have previously been reported to be associated with treatment outcome in MD (rs908867 and rs1491850).
Conclusions: Our results support the hypothesis that the BDNF gene is involved in the response to psychopharmacologic treatment even though these preliminary findings await replication in a follow-up sample.