English to French Medical Medical (general) psychology

For the first time, advances in technology are allowing researchers to investigate the activity of the waking human brain without causing significant discomfort or risk to the subject. Several of these techniques have been applied to the study of OCD with dramatic results. Lewis R. Baxter Jr. and colleagues of the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Alabama in Birmingham were the first to use positron-emission tomography (PET) to study OCD. PET scans produce color-coded images of the brain's metabolic activity. Baxter?s study showed that patients with OCD had elevated brain activity in areas of the frontal lobes (particularly the orbital cortex) and the basal ganglia. Several other groups have since confirmed these findings. Other evidence for a causal role of the basal ganglia in OCD are accidents of nature, such as Sydenham's chorea and von Ecomomo's encephalitis that damage the basal ganglia and produce obsessive-compulsive symptoms.