Effect of the Emotional Antisaccade Tasks on Salivary Trace Elements and Resting State EEG in Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Abstract The study of salivary microelements and their neurophysiological and behavioral correlates in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a pressing issue in modern psychiatry, which, however, lacks adequate research at this time, especially in terms of emotional or cognitive effort. In this study, we tested the dynamics of behavioral parameters, electroencephalogram (EEG) parameters, and salivary iron, copper, manganese, magnesium, and zinc in 30 healthy volunteers and 30 OCD patients using an emotional antisaccade task with an overlap design. We recorded both 64-channel EEG and eye-movement data and investigated the task-solving effectiveness and linear and non-linear features of the EEG resting states before and following the experimental paradigm. Our research revealed consistently increased manganese concentrations in OCD patients compared to healthy volunteers associated with higher amplitude variability of the EEG and symptom severity. The dynamics of salivary microelements and resting state EEG associated with task solving differed between groups. In healthy volunteers, there was a decrease in salivary iron with an increase in high-frequency PSD. In patients with OCD, there was a decrease in salivary copper with increased Hjorth mobility of the EEG.