Individual differences in disgust sensitivity modulate neural responses to aversive/disgusting stimuli

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Individual differences in trait disgust sensitivity are not well understood in relation to neural responses.
• Disgust sensitivity is a normally distributed behavioral trait with potential implications for psychiatric disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how individual differences in trait disgust sensitivity modulate neural responses to disgusting stimuli.
• To explore the relationship between disgust sensitivity scores and brain activation patterns during exposure to disgusting images.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-seven healthy adult volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while viewing disgusting and neutral images.
• Participants completed the Disgust Scale (DS) to assess trait disgust sensitivity.
• Statistical analyses controlled for biological sex, anxiety, and depression scores.

Main Results:

• Disgust Scale (DS) scores positively correlated with neural activation in disgust-related brain regions, including the anterior insula, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex-temporal pole, putamen-globus pallidus, dorsal anterior cingulate, and visual cortex.
• DS scores negatively correlated with activation in emotion-regulating brain regions, such as the dorsolateral and rostral prefrontal cortices.
• These correlations remained significant after controlling for potential confounding factors.

Conclusions:

• Trait disgust sensitivity predicts the magnitude of neural responses to a wide range of disgusting stimuli.
• Neural responses to disgust are modulated by individual differences in disgust sensitivity.
• Findings offer insights into the neural underpinnings of disgust and have implications for disgust-related psychiatric disorders.