Symposium: OCD at Queen Square

For over 150 years, the institutions and clinicians based at Queen Square have quietly made seminal contributions to the field of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). From the pioneering insights of Hughlings Jackson in the 1890s, which helped resolve long-standing debates about the correct Kraepelinian classification of OCD, through the rich clinical descriptions of obsessional slowness in neurasthenia in the 1920s and the foundational animal studies of the 1930s, to later laying the groundwork for neuroimaging techniques that made possible the eventual visualisation of the “OCD brain”, and pioneering transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a clinical treatment—now one of the major therapeutic options for this disabling condition—Queen Square has been central to many major neuroscientific advances relevant to OCD.

Archival records indicate that Queen Square has delivered brain-based treatments for OCD in the UK since the 1970s, culminating decades later in the country’s first deep brain stimulation (DBS) trial for OCD (2012–2016). It also remains the UK’s only centre providing ablative neuromodulation for enduring, treatment-refractory OCD.

This mini-event, also marking the OCD Awareness Week celebration at Queen Square, will explore the evolution and current status of brain circuit–based treatments for OCD, tracing the extraordinary journey from early radical interventions to today’s frontier of precision neuropsychiatry.

The evening will conclude with an interactive panel discussion featuring leading faculty members.

Further information and registration