Islamabad (Pakistan Point News / Online - 12th January, 2020) New research shows how the use of a multisensory illusion may help treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The new method could bypass the disadvantages of exposure therapy.In 1998, researchers Matthew Botvinick and Jonathan Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh, PA, detailed an experiment that people would later refer to as the "rubber hand illusion" (RHI).In the experiment, 10 people sat down, resting their left arm on a table.
A screen hid each participant's arm from view, and instead, they could see a life-sized rubber hand model.The researchers placed the hand right in front of the person so that they could see it from the same angle as they would their own hand.After asking each participant to fix their gaze on the rubber hand, the experimenters used two small paintbrushes to stroke the rubber hand and the participant's actual hand at the same time.After 10 minutes, the participants reported feeling the rubber hand as though it were their own.
Now, new research has used the RHI to help people with contamination-related OCD overcome their fears.In contamination-related OCD, the fear of touching a doorknob, for example, may cause people with the condition to spend hours washing and scrubbing their hands to an excessive degree afterward.Doctors and mental health professionals often recommend "exposure therapy" to treat this and other forms of OCD.Using a fake hand to treat OCDThe new research builds on previous RHI experiments that Jalal carried out together with fellow neuroscientist Vilayanur S.
Ramachandran, who is a co-author of the new study.In these previous studies, Jalal and Ramachandran contaminated the fake hand with fake feces, and the participants reported feeling disgusted in the same way that they would if they had used their own hand.After 5 minutes, the experimenters asked how real the dummy hand felt to the participants. Then, they used a tissue to smear the dummy hand with fake feces while simultaneously touching the real, hidden hand with a damp paper towel to mimick the feeling of them having feces on their hand.
The experimenters again asked the participants to rate their level of disgust, as well as how anxious they were and how strongly they felt the urge to go and wash their hand.RHI may ease OCD contamination fearsThen, the researchers took away both the clean paper towel and the fake feces tissue, leaving fake feces on the dummy hand. After this, they stroked the rubber hand and the real hand for another 5 minutes, still either synchronously or asynchronously.
In this condition, the participants in the intervention group reported feeling more disgusted than those in the control group.In the next step, the stroking stopped, and the researchers placed fake feces on the real right hand of each of the participants.Replacing traditional exposure therapyIn other words, the researcher believes that it is safe to conclude from these findings that after 30 minutes, participants would experience a drop in feelings of anxiety, disgust, and washing urge, based on the proven success of exposure therapy."If you can provide an indirect treatment that is reasonably realistic, where you contaminate a rubber hand instead of a real hand, this might provide a bridge that will allow more people to tolerate exposure therapy or even to replace exposure therapy altogether," continues the scientist.
