People who hoard apparently useless items may be able to blame an area of their brain, say US researchers.
"The more we can start to understand about the neurobiology of hoarding the more we can start to think about targeting treatments accordingly."
But Professor Paul Salkovskis from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Knowing which area of the brain is affected does not help you in treatment one little bit.
"Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem.
"At this point there is no evidence that there is any biological difference between these patients.
"The answer is cognitive behavioural therapy." ...
People who hoard apparently useless items may be able to blame an area of their brain, say US researchers.
The University of Iowa team pinpointed a region in the frontal lobe that appeared to control this behaviour.
Researchers have linked hoarding to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but it is not known what causes it and whether it is a unique condition.
The study in the journal Brain adds to growing evidence that hoarding has its own specific underlying mechanism.
Useless junk
OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the person is compelled by irrational fears and thoughts to repeat seemingly needless actions over and over again.
It can manifest itself in repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand washing, cleaning or repeated checking.
But some people with OCD have a compulsion to hoard things, which is well above and beyond the avid interest of an average stamp collector.
Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles have already shown that people with OCD who also hoard show different brain activity patterns to other OCD patients.
To gain a better understanding of the cause of obsessive collecting behaviour, Dr Steven Anderson and his team studied 13 people who had developed a hoarding compulsion after sustaining a brain injury.
Hoarding was defined as abnormal if it was extensive, the squirreled items were not useful or aesthetic and the individual was unwilling to discard any of their collection.
Some of the patients had filled their homes with vast quantities of junk mail or broken appliances, for example.
They scanned the patients and compared their brain scans with those taken from other 73 brain injured patients who displayed no abnormal collecting behaviour.
Frontal lobe
The scans showed up an obvious difference.
Dr Anderson said: "A pretty clear finding jumped out at us.
"Damage to a part of the frontal lobes of the cortex, particularly on the right side, was shared by the individuals with abnormal behaviour.
"Patients with OCD and some other disorders, such as schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome and certain dementias, can have similar pathological collecting behaviour but we don't have a pointer to located where in the brain the problem is occurring.
"Our hope is that our findings with these brain lesion studies will lead to insights in these conditions as well."
Dr Naomi Fineberg, an expert in OCD at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, said: "These studies, which are really in their infancy, are starting to confirm that hoarding may be different from the rest of OCD.
"The hoarding type is unresponsive to normal OCD treatments, so if we can identify areas of the brain specific for hoarding this will have quite profound implications.
"The more we can start to understand about the neurobiology of hoarding the more we can start to think about targeting treatments accordingly."
But Professor Paul Salkovskis from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Knowing which area of the brain is affected does not help you in treatment one little bit.
"Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem.
"At this point there is no evidence that there is any biological difference between these patients.
"The answer is cognitive behavioural therapy."
http://www.anxiety2calm.com/blogger/2007/04/why-some-people-become-hoarders-ocd.html
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Why some people become hoarders
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The University of Iowa team pinpointed a region in the frontal lobe that appeared to control this behaviour. Researchers have linked hoarding to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but it is not known what causes it and whether it is a unique condition. The study in the journal Brain adds to growing evidence that hoarding has its own specific underlying mechanism. Useless junk OCD is an anxiety disorder in which the person is compelled by irrational fears and thoughts to repeat seemingly needless actions over and over again. It can manifest itself in repetitive behaviours, such as excessive hand washing, cleaning or repeated checking. But some people with OCD have a compulsion to hoard things, which is well above and beyond the avid interest of an average stamp collector.
Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles have already shown that people with OCD who also hoard show different brain activity patterns to other OCD patients. To gain a better understanding of the cause of obsessive collecting behaviour, Dr Steven Anderson and his team studied 13 people who had developed a hoarding compulsion after sustaining a brain injury. Hoarding was defined as abnormal if it was extensive, the squirreled items were not useful or aesthetic and the individual was unwilling to discard any of their collection. Some of the patients had filled their homes with vast quantities of junk mail or broken appliances, for example. They scanned the patients and compared their brain scans with those taken from other 73 brain injured patients who displayed no abnormal collecting behaviour. Frontal lobe The scans showed up an obvious difference. Dr Anderson said: "A pretty clear finding jumped out at us. "Damage to a part of the frontal lobes of the cortex, particularly on the right side, was shared by the individuals with abnormal behaviour. "Patients with OCD and some other disorders, such as schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome and certain dementias, can have similar pathological collecting behaviour but we don't have a pointer to located where in the brain the problem is occurring. "Our hope is that our findings with these brain lesion studies will lead to insights in these conditions as well." Dr Naomi Fineberg, an expert in OCD at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, said: "These studies, which are really in their infancy, are starting to confirm that hoarding may be different from the rest of OCD. "The hoarding type is unresponsive to normal OCD treatments, so if we can identify areas of the brain specific for hoarding this will have quite profound implications. "The more we can start to understand about the neurobiology of hoarding the more we can start to think about targeting treatments accordingly." But Professor Paul Salkovskis from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Knowing which area of the brain is affected does not help you in treatment one little bit. "Potentially, it's misleading because people feel if you can image a problem it means it is a biologically-based problem. "At this point there is no evidence that there is any biological difference between these patients. "The answer is cognitive behavioural therapy."
Your comments
Go through a couple hurricanes in a row and even YOU will start hoarding water, canned food, batteries, generators, tarps, etc.
Kelly, Northern Ireland Every human being has both logic and emotion as part of their make-up. Hoarding and OCD exist when the emotional facets of the brain are given supremacy and logic gets ignored. By strengthening the logical part of the mind, these problems can be overcome. Exercises like completing to-do lists for simple daily jobs (ticking off each task as it gets done) can strengthen the logical and sequential part of the mind. Follow small and consistent steps, until the logical part of the mind gains control. I wouldn't describe myself as a full-blown OCD victim but I have certainly had obsessive behaviours in the past - not handwashing, but things like wanting to step into a room with twelve steps on each foot, six on the left and six on the right, and endlessly minimizing programs on my PC four or seven times because it 'feels right'. I also still worry compulsively about misfortune happening to friends and family. I am not so afflicted with most of these problems now. I have found a way to deal with them that some of you might find a bit useful... since I used to behave compulsively because it 'felt right', now I designate doing the opposite of my obsessive urge as 'feeling right'. It works.
Anon, UK I hoard useless bits of research and this will sit nicely in my collection. I think hoarding is perfectly natural as it shows an appreciation that everything can have a value or a use, even if it doesn't at first appear to be the case. I would be more concerned with those who squander and waste. I have been known to hoard things. As a child I hoarded anything from plastic wrappers to gravel. Now I focus on what I can hide - such as junk computer files, container lids, tile patterns, and rocks. My computer, home, and mind are all basically hoards of feckless things.
Eddie Dishon, Scotland I used to read self-help books and they often advised me to "throw out anything I haven't used or needed over the past year". My concern was actually about the whole ethic of just "throwing stuff out" without any mention of passing it to charity shops, selling it on ebay to someone who might find it useful etc. Clearly, such self-help books aren't too worried about helping others! Not hoarding is one thing, but surely buying less rather than just throwing stuff away is the important thing.
Rob Smith, London, UK My Great Aunt Ella was a compulsive hoarder. Along with the remnants of her mother's trousseau (nightdresses, and about twenty pairs of very ancient handmade knickers) my Dad found several boxes of packaging material, as well as every card, letter or gift she had ever been given (she was a school teacher), several decades worth of the Birmingham Evening Post (she lived in Torquay) and quite a few dolls when they cleared her bungalow after she died. Now I have an excuse when my wife wants to throw out all of my rubbish! Fantastic! My wife thinks I am an excessive hoarder, but now that the old comics I kept from childhood are trading on ebay for £20 each she agrees it's not so daft. She still wants rid of them, but now at a profit!
Brett, Canterbury, UK My husband was collecting old broken watches when we met, which he intended to fix or repair one day. At least these broken relics, though of little value, do not take up much space. Then he started collecting old broken cameras - all useless. Even if he did fix them you can no longer get the plates or film for them. Then he moved on to microscopes. Some are huge industrial monsters, and they do take up a lot of space - in fact where we should have a lounge is full of old broken microscopes that just need fixing...
Chris Rollason, UK I feel so much better knowing there is a medical reason why I am such a hoarder but I don't think I need therapy for it! I think that hoarding betrays immense insecurity in a person which is very sad and could be for a number of reasons. It's the opposite of 'minimalism' which is equally worrying in its display of self-conscious, almost paranoid over-confidence. Most people are somewhere in between, and have a bit of clutter whilst being reasonably selective about what they keep. I'd be just as concerned about the state of mind of the clinically clean minimalists as I was about the hoarders though, there's a bit of obsessive compulsiveness about that tendency as well. I have a habit of upgrading my mobile every 2 or 3 months just to have the latest phone. This has resulted in me now having 27 spare phones which I neither will sell nor giveaway!
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If we can identify areas of the brain specific for hoarding this will have quite profound implications. 