Abstract：
Pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction represent learning mechanisms underlying exposure-based interventions. While increasing evidence indicates a pivotal role of disgust in the development of contamination-based obsessive-compulsive disorder (C-OCD), dysregulations in conditioned disgust acquisition and maintenance, in particular driven by higher-order conceptual processes, have not been examined. Here, we address this gap by exposing individuals with high (HCC, n = 41) or low (LCC, n = 41) contamination concern to a conceptual-level disgust conditioning and extinction paradigm. Conditioned stimuli (CS+) were images from one conceptual category partially reinforced by unconditioned disgust-eliciting stimuli (US), while images from another category served as non-reinforced conditioned stimuli (CS-). Skin conductance responses (SCRs), US expectancy and CS valence ratings served as primary outcomes to quantify conditioned disgust responses. Relative to LCC, HCC individuals exhibited increased US expectancy and CS+ disgust experience, but comparable SCR levels following disgust acquisition. Despite a decrease in conditioned responses from the acquisition phase to the extinction phase, both groups did not fully extinguish the learned disgust. Importantly, the extinction resilience of acquired disgust was more pronounced in HCC individuals. Together, our findings suggest that individuals with high self-reported contamination concern exhibit increased disgust acquisition and resistance to extinction. The findings provide preliminary evidence on how dysregulated disgust learning mechanism across semantically related concepts may contribute to C-OCD.
摘要：
巴甫洛夫恐惧条件和灭绝代表了基于暴露的干预措施的学习机制。虽然越来越多的证据表明厌恶在基于污染的强迫症（C-OCD）的发展中起着关键作用，条件性厌恶获取和维护中的失调，特别是在高阶概念过程的驱动下，没有被检查。这里,我们通过暴露高(HCC，n=41)或低(LCC，n=41）污染与概念级厌恶条件和灭绝范式有关。条件刺激（CS）是来自一个概念类别的图像，部分被非条件厌恶引起的刺激（US）增强，而来自另一类别的图像则用作非强化条件刺激（CS-）。皮肤电导反应（SCR），美国预期和CS效价等级是量化条件厌恶反应的主要结果。相对于LCC，HCC个体表现出增加的美国预期和CS+厌恶经验，但厌恶收购后的SCR水平相当。尽管从采集阶段到灭绝阶段的条件响应有所减少，两组都没有完全消除学习到的厌恶。重要的是,在HCC个体中，获得性厌恶的消退韧性更为明显。一起,我们的发现表明，自我报告污染较高的个体表现出更高的厌恶获取和灭绝抗性。这些发现为语义相关概念的失调厌恶学习机制如何可能导致C-OCD提供了初步证据。
