Recent research points away from anxiety as the cause of OCD. OCD is a mental illness characterized by obsessive and irrational thoughts (obsession) that are accompanied by rituals (compulsions). The latter serves the purpose of lessening the anxiety produced by those toughts. For example someone with OCD might be obsessed with the idea that his/her family will die if he/she does not repeat a certain behavior 42 times (e.g, washing hands 42 times, retracing one's steps 42 times, etc,..). So according to this view anxiety is the result of OCD and not the culprit.
The argument is that a glitch in the neural circuit involved with decison-making and reward is responsible for the mental illness.In other words, something went wrong in the decision-making system such that irrational thougts are now given attention and they produce anxiety unless they are acted upon. The reward system, which is the feel good machine, thus becomes associated with the obsessive thoughts. A healthy brain would filter out irrational thoughts and not give any meaning to them.
This is a good piece of news for those people struggling with anxiety, for they do not need to worry about developping OCD as a result of their anxiety.
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