Andrew Huberman· PhD
this is the ventralstratum which is not limited to but includes the nucleus accumbens this is an area of the brain that we know to be involved in gating reward seeking behavior when it's perturbed it seems to gait compulsive Behavior meaning a rat will pursue a reward despite punishment despite a foot shock for example and that can be uh similar to an OCD patient they will um check their home for safety until 3 A.M in the morning and not sleep that night in a way that is similar to a rat seeking out a food reward uh despite a foot shock um doing something because of the urge but despite the risk and perhaps there is some normal judgment there we all have to take risks to function in everyday Society to be successful we have to take a risk to take care of patients with surgery there's some risk there we make a judgment call and that's not a condition that that's just normal but when our judgment is consistently sort of puts us at risk that's where we have something like OCD