Regional cerebral glucose metabolism of women with trichotillomania.

Positron emission tomography and 18-F-fluorodeoxyglucose were used to study resting cerebral glucose metabolism in 10 adult women with trichotillomania and 20 age-matched female controls. As a group, the patients with trichotillomania showed significantly increased global (mean gray matter) and normalized right and left cerebellar and right superior parietal glucose metabolic rates. Contrary to expectation, this pattern differed from that seen in our previous investigation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clomipramine hydrochloride-induced improvement was negatively correlated with anterior cingulate and orbital frontal metabolism, of particular interest because similar results had been obtained for obsessive-compulsive disorder.