Module 10 Flashcards
OCD II (24 cards)
What is the purpose of the shock avoidance task?
To induce habits through overtraining.
How would goal-directed behavior be shown in the shock avoidance task?
The subject no longer responds to the CS that predicts a shock to the wrist that is disconnected, but does respond to the CS predicting a shock to the wrist that can still receive a shock.
How would habitual behavior be seen in the shock avoidance task?
The participant keeps responding to cues alerting of shocks to either wrist, even the one that cannot be shocked anymore.
What was the conclusion of the paper by Gillian et al., using the shock avoidance task?
OCD patients were able to stop responding to the devalued stimulus just like controls. Overtraining led to habitual behavior in both groups, but more so for OCD patients. This shows a propensity to habit formation.
The mechanisms underlying compulsions can be explaine by two accounts. One of them is the cognitive account. What is its main premise?
Compulsivity arises from cognitive bias in attribution of values -> costs of stopping compulsions are judged as being higher than the benefits.
The habit account is another mechanism for compulsivity. What is its premise?
Compulsivity arises from goal-directed dysfunction and related excessive habit formation
There are alterations in brain regions associated to goal-directed behavior in OCD. What areas are those?
Caudate and orbital gyrus.
There’s an area of the brain that is associated with habitual behavior; it shows increased gray matter volumes in OCD patients. What area is that?
The putamen.
What experimental evidence shows support for the habit account?
Several experiments show a shift in balance from goal-directed control to habitual control in OCD patients.
What is the paradigm of appetitive instrumental learning and what does it show in OCD patients?
Participants learn positively reinforced stimulus-response-outcome associations. Afterwards, outcome-devaluation and behaviorl tests of contingency knowledge are done. OCD patients have a significant bias towards S-R, habitual learning, as the expense of outcome-action learning.
The economic choice paradigm allows us to test goal-directed behavioral control without the confounding of habit formation. What does research of OCD patients with this paradigm show?
OCD patients had a reduced influence of potential regret in decision making -> deficits of g-d control over action and decision making.
What is the classical cognitive view of OCD?
Compulsions are seen as a response to obsessive thoughts in an attempt to gain relief from them.
What are the two main issues with the classical view of OCD?
- Compulsions can develop in absence of obsessions.
- OCD is egodystonic, and there’s often insight, which cognitive models cannot account for.
An alternative to the classical view is the COD view. What does it entail?
Obsessions form as a post-hoc rationalization that can reduce the cognitive dissonance which occurs as a result of excessive compulsions.
What are the three main transdiagnostic processes?
- Top-down processes: executive functions.
- Bottom-up processes: habits
- Neurobiological bases
What does the habit account state on compulsivity?
Temporary releif caused by performing the compulsions may lead to reinforcement of habitual rituals associated with antecedent triggers.
There are some observations that provide more support for the habit account than for the g-d account. What are they?
- Patients sometimes report starting a compulsion without realizing it.
- Sometimes symptoms temporarily diminish in a new environment.
OCD has been associated with impaired top-down control (executive functioning). What dysfunctions are there?
Cognitive flexibility; decision making; impulse control.
What are symptom provocation studies?
A paradigm in which patients are subjected to triggers of obsessions and compulsions while they’re monitored in neuroimaging.
What are some consistent findings of symptom provocation studies?
Hyperactivity in the OFC, vmPFC and caudate. More activation in the g-d system.
Some evidence has shown an enhanced propensity for habits in OCD patients. This propensity was independent of obsessions of compulsions. What evidence is it?
Slips-of-action test: OCD patients commit more slips of action; press more for devalued outcomes than controls did.
What does evidence from a shock avoidance task combined with a fMRI state?
Hyperactivation of the caudate, and maybe the OFC, is relatd to overreliance on habits.
What are the two components of Habit Reversal Therapy?
- Awareness training: awareness of triggers for compulsions.
- Competing response training: training of a physically incompatible response to control compulsions.
