Dissociation of neuronal, electrodermal, and evaluative responses in disgust extinction.

Abstract

Disgust extinction is an important mechanism relevant for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, only a few studies have investigated disgust extinction. Moreover, because disgust sensitivity (DS) is considered as a relevant factor for learning processes, this study also investigated the potential relationship between DS and disgust extinction learning. The aim of this study was to explore the neuronal correlates of disgust extinction, as well as changes in skin conductance responses (SCRs) and evaluative conditioning. Twenty subjects were exposed to a differential extinction paradigm, in which a previous conditioned, and now unreinforced, stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS+) was compared to a second stimulus (CS-), which was previously not associated with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Extinction learning was measured on three different response levels (BOLD responses, SCRs, and evaluative conditioning). Regarding evaluative conditioning, the CS+ was rated as more unpleasant than the CS-. Interestingly, significantly increased amygdala responses and SCRs toward to the CS- were observed. Finally, a (negative) trend was found between DS scores and BOLD responses of the prefrontal cortex. The present findings showed a dissociation of different response levels. The increased CS- responses could be explained by the assumption that the increased amygdala activity may reflect a safety learning signal during the first extinction trials and the subjective focus may therefore shift from the CS+ to the CS-. The correlation finding supports previous studies postulating that DS hampers extinction processes. The present results point toward dissociations between the response levels in context of extinction processes.

Learning to like disgust: neuronal correlates of counterconditioning

“…Moreover, subjective and neuronal disgust responses remain relatively stable between sessions, indicating little between-session reduction of disgust responding (Stark et al, 2004). These findings are paralleled by reports on prolonged extinction of disgust-relevant conditioned responses (Olatunji et al, 2007; Klucken et al, 2013). Thus, the lack of change in subjective and hemodynamic disgust responding in this study is in line with the view that disgust responses are particularly difficult to modify (Rozin and Fallon, 1987; Olatunji et al, 2010; Mason and Richardson, 2012).…”

Unconditioned Stimulus Revaluation to Promote Conditioned Fear Extinction in the Memory Reconsolidation Window

“…Thus, there was a dissociation between measures, which persisted through the extinction phase. The dissociation effects observed in the present study are consistent with other some experiments [25], [27], [36]–[37], supporting the idea that there are different types of memory formed during the same training procedure. The dual process theory states that implicit performance and explicit performance are dissociable from one another [25], [38].…”

How Does Food Taste in Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa? A Protocol for a Quasi-Experimental, Cross-Sectional Design to Investigate Taste Aversion or Increased Hedonic Valence of Food in Eating Disorders

“…By contrast, well-known procedures that may reduce the effectiveness of and limit learning about the hedonic food reward concern flavor extinction (e.g., Garcia-Burgos and González, 2012 ), flavor pre-exposure (e.g., Garcia-Burgos et al, 2013 ), and blocking of flavor learning (e.g., González et al, 2014 ). In human studies, for instance, counter-conditioning and extinction interventions have been recently applied to target affective conditioning characteristic of disgust (e.g., Klucke et al, 2013 ; Hildebrandt et al, 2015 ). Moreover, food-devaluation procedures are currently being used to test behavioral sensitivity to reward in populations with weight problems (e.g., Horstmann et al, 2015 ).…”