Investigating Maladaptive Habit Formation and Threat Influences in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
type: CreativeWork
description: Maladaptive habit formation is hypothesised to contribute to numerous clinical disorders, including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The way in which habits become maladaptive and persist is not fully understood, but the acquisition of both goal-directed and habit-like behaviour can be captured using a procedure called Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer (PIT). PIT refers to the influence of previously learned pavlovian stimuli on instrumental action and is commonly used to assess the motivational influences of reward-related cues on behaviour. The current state of human appetitive PIT was examined and used as a framework underpinning the acquisition of maladaptive habits. The PIT procedure was then adapted to capture context-dependent threat influences learning, mimicking OCD symptomology. The wide variety of procedures and experimental designs encompassing many different theoretical interpretations of PIT, became apparent through a systematic literature review on human appetitive PIT experiments, presented in Chapter 3. The disparity in the procedural and theoretical approaches in human PIT studies results in challenges in comparing findings across studies and has implications for the translational relevance of PIT between species. Rodent PIT studies reveal insights into the acquisition and consolidation of reward-based learning in humans, therefore a cross-species comparison to optimise the PIT procedure is a crucial consideration. To both improve the cross-species and clinical translatability of PIT, a series of experiments were conducted to optimise the PIT procedure to capture and further understand maladaptive habit formation and the acquisition of maladaptive behaviour. Chapter 4 considers the relevance of stimulus modality, as PIT procedures in rodents commonly use auditory stimuli - to avoid other potential pavlovian confounds, including pavlovian conditioned approach - but in humans, visual stimuli are more commonly used. This chapter introduces a novel P…
abstract: Maladaptive habit formation is hypothesised to contribute to numerous clinical disorders, including Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The way in which habits become maladaptive and persist is not fully understood, but the acquisition of both goal-directed and habit-like behaviour can be captured using a procedure called Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer (PIT). PIT refers to the influence of previously learned pavlovian stimuli on instrumental action and is commonly used to assess the motivational influences of reward-related cues on behaviour. The current state of human appetitive PIT was examined and used as a framework underpinning the acquisition of maladaptive habits. The PIT procedure was then adapted to capture context-dependent threat influences learning, mimicking OCD symptomology. The wide variety of procedures and experimental designs encompassing many different theoretical interpretations of PIT, became apparent through a systematic literature review on human appetitive PIT experiments, presented in Chapter 3. The disparity in the procedural and theoretical approaches in human PIT studies results in challenges in comparing findings across studies and has implications for the translational relevance of PIT between species. Rodent PIT studies reveal insights into the acquisition and consolidation of reward-based learning in humans, therefore a cross-species comparison to optimise the PIT procedure is a crucial consideration. To both improve the cross-species and clinical translatability of PIT, a series of experiments were conducted to optimise the PIT procedure to capture and further understand maladaptive habit formation and the acquisition of maladaptive behaviour. Chapter 4 considers the relevance of stimulus modality, as PIT procedures in rodents commonly use auditory stimuli - to avoid other potential pavlovian confounds, including pavlovian conditioned approach - but in humans, visual stimuli are more commonly used. This chapter introduces a novel P…
author: Berg, Shaira
language: eng
keywords: Behavioural Neuroscience, Compulsivity, Habits, Maladaptive Habits, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pavlovian, Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/18c4131a-1b65-470d-9d05-ad757e5f2fa0/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2025-03-27
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:30Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.118194