Abstract：
Disgust imagery represents a potential pathological mechanism for disgust-related disorders. However, it remains controversial as to whether disgust can be conditioned with disgust-evoking mental imagery serving as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Therefore, we examined this using a conditioned learning paradigm in combination with event-related potential (ERP) analysis in 35 healthy college students. The results indicated that the initial neutral face (conditioned stimulus, CS+) became more disgust-evoking, unpleasant, and arousing after pairing with disgust-evoking imagery (disgust CS+), compared to pairing with neutral (neutral CS+) and no (CS-) imagery. Moreover, we observed that mental imagery-based disgust conditioning was resistant to extinction. While the disgust CS + evoked larger P3 and late positive potential amplitudes than CS- during acquisition, no significant differences were found between disgust CS+ and neutral CS+, indicating a dissociation between self-reported and neurophysiological responses. Future studies may additionally acquire facial EMG as an implicit index of conditioned disgust. This study provides the first neurobiological evidence that associative disgust learning can occur without aversive physical stimuli, with implications for understanding how disgust-related disorders may manifest or deteriorate without external perceptual aversive experiences, such as in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
摘要：
厌恶图像代表了厌恶相关疾病的潜在病理机制。然而,关于厌恶是否可以以厌恶引起的心理意象作为无条件刺激（美国）为条件，这仍然存在争议。因此,我们使用条件性学习范式结合事件相关电位(ERP)分析对35名健康大学生进行了研究.结果表明，最初的中性面孔(条件刺激，CS+)变得更加厌恶，不愉快,在与令人厌恶的意象(令人厌恶的CS+)配对后被唤醒，与中性（中性CS+）和无（CS-）图像配对相比。此外，我们观察到基于心理意象的厌恶条件对灭绝具有抵抗力。尽管在采集过程中，厌恶CS引起的P3和正电位幅度比CS-更大，厌恶CS+和中性CS+之间没有发现显著差异，表明自我报告和神经生理反应之间的分离。未来的研究可能还会获得面部肌电图作为条件性厌恶的内隐指标。这项研究提供了第一个神经生物学证据，证明联想厌恶学习可以在没有厌恶的物理刺激的情况下发生。与理解厌恶相关的疾病如何在没有外部感知厌恶经验的情况下表现或恶化有关，例如强迫症（OCD）。
