Journal
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH-NEUROIMAGING
Volume 172, Issue 2, Pages 99-102Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2008.11.005
Keywords
Spider phobia; Psychotherapy; Follow-up; Pictures; fMRI
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Funding
- German Research Foundation
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This functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated long-term effects of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) in individuals suffering from spider phobia. Ten female patients who had shown positive immediate CBT effects were invited to take part in a 6-month follow-up investigation. Here, the patients, along with eight non-phobic females, were presented with the same pictures depicting spiders, generally disgust-inducing, generally fear-inducing and neutral content, which they had viewed 6 months earlier. Patients' self-report and overt behavior indicated a positive long-term clinical improvement Related hemodynamic changes included an increase in medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activity. As the medial OFC is involved in emotion-related learning, especially in the representation of positive stimulus-outcome associations, we conclude that the medial OFC effect constitutes the neuronal basis of the lasting positive CBT outcome. Activity to disorder-irrelevant pictures decreased across the sessions in the lateral OFC and in the insular, which most likely reflects general habituation. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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