High-Dose Glycine Treatment of Refractory Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder in a 5-Year Period

Table 3

Summary of cognitive and educational data.

Age 7	Formal cognitive testing suggests mild deficits, including signs of deficits in attention and working memory.
Age 14	Poor retention of algebra topics during intensive paternal tutoring. Same types of math errors seen in Age-7 cognitive testing.
Age 17–25	No regular school or formal tutoring in the eight years preceding glycine treatment.
Age 25	GED test taken in standard time period 145 days after initiation of glycine treatment. Five GED subtest scores ranged from the 67th to the 99th percentile.
Age 27	SAT taken in standard time period 68 days after resuming glycine in OP5. Verbal score = 90th percentile. Math score = 50th percentile. Official scores were each 120–130 points higher than the lowest practice tests.
Age 27	Paternal impression of rapid absorption of new math topics is supported by college placement exam taken just after end of glycine consumption for 138 days. College education initiated. Generally good academic performance in English and Algebra courses. The same types of math errors seen at ages 7 and 14 returned 21–26 weeks after glycine cessation.
Age 30	Formal cognitive testing 17 months after glycine cessation revealed substantial deficits in tasks requiring manipulation of nonsequential items, self-monitoring, response inhibition, and set shifting. Visual-perceptual and visuoconstructive skills were found to be severely impaired. Auditory immediate and delayed scores on subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale III were in ∼1st percentile. Memory deficits were also revealed by the California Verbal Learning Test-II. A difference of 30 points between predicted and actual results was found for the Working Memory Index of the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (cumulative percentage = 1%), suggesting a cognitive decline from OP5 where high verbal SAT performance was seen.