“I feel your disgust and relief”: can the action understanding system (mirror neuron system) be recruited to induce disgust and relief from contamination vicariously, in individuals with obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms?

Abstract

Research has shown that brain regions mediating disgust (e.g., the insula) become activated when viewing others' disgust, a response mediated, perhaps by the mirror neuron system or the Theory of Mind module. In a novel behavioral experiment, we explore vicarious disgust and relief, in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms. Participants (N = 10) provided disgust ratings to self-contamination or watching the contamination of an experimenter; and to the experimenter washing his own hands after the subjects had been contaminated. To our surprise, we found that subjects experienced disgust from merely watching the experimenter contaminating himself. More intriguingly, after subjects had contaminated themselves, they obtained relief from merely watching the experimenter washing his own hands; even while recognizing the logical absurdity of this. The result is counterintuitive since neither the subjects nor anyone else would have predicted this. These preliminary findings - if confirmed in placebo-controlled studies - might pave the way toward novel therapeutic approaches for OCD.

“Fake it till You Make it”! Contaminating Rubber Hands (“Multisensory Stimulation Therapy”) to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

“…This finding is highly counterintuitive. It dovetails with our related studies showing that both college students with OCD symptoms (Jalal and Ramachandran, 2017) and severe OCD patients (Jalal et al, under review) report indistinguishable levels of disgust when merely watching an experimenter contaminating his own hand and when their hand is contaminated. This research illustrates the cognitive impenetrability of contamination sensations (i.e., how such gut reactions can override logic and break down ''self-other'' barriers).…”

Disgust and the rubber hand illusion: A registered replication report of Jalal, Krishnakumar, and Ramachandran (2015)

“…In addition, as Curtis, de Barra, and Aunger (2011) argued, information related to pollution shared by a particular culture may be attributed to variations in disgust proneness. ERP treatment is regarded as the primary nonpharmacological treatment for C-OCD (Jalal & Ramachandran, 2017;Mancebo, Steketee, Muroff, Rasmussen, & Zlotnick, 2017), but several studies have shown that the conventional ERP does not always work effectively for C-OCD (Ludvik et al, 2015;Widen & Olatunji, 2016). As Jalal et al (2015) originally demonstrated and the present study confirmed, participants under the RHI felt disgust toward contamination-related stimuli without actually being in direct (skin-to-skin) contact with these stimuli.…”

Disgust in Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: Recent Findings and Future Directions

“…Similarly, even watching others be contaminated can induce feelings of disgust in individuals with OC symptoms. In a small study of ten participants, individuals with OC symptoms reported feeling disgusted while observing others touch contaminated stimuli but also experienced vicarious relief when they observed that person wash after contamination [52]. …”