OCD IN THE EEAKatie BowdenScotty Frazier

Elaine MatteucciMelissa Ortiz

Glass, D. J. (2012). Evolutionary clinical psychology, broadly construed: Perspectives on obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 6(3), 292-308.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DCWslbsNM

Anxiety (obsession) and rituals (compulsions)

Treatments for OCD

CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy ERP: Exposure and response prevention

Possible Evolutionary Forces Accounting for Existence of Mental

Disorders Adaptation: trait shaped by natural selection to solve

problems in EEA

Mismatch: once adaptive, but now maladaptive in novel environments

Byproduct: trait is a result of selection of other traits

Balancing selection: trait’s benefits offset its costs in particular environments

Mutation selection balance: minor mutations take longer to be selected against

Lesion

Adaptationism & OCD

Symptoms are related to threat-avoidance and once provided fitness benefits

Meta-cognition of risk scenarios

Benefits for entire group

Non-Adaptationist Evolutionary Approaches

Environmental mismatch theory and mental disorders as normal functioning processes? Harmful dysfunction defining a true disorder

Aren’t disorders just a by-product of our complex brains and not adaptations of our ancestors? But then how can evolution and natural

selection account for how common, harmful, and heritable these disorders are?

Non-Adaptationist Evolutionary Approaches

Antagonistic pleiotropy: a gene has both harmful and advantageous effects OCD can serve as a harm-avoidant tendency through

balancing selection

Ethological models

Animal models of OCD paralleled with human exemplar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWjxC0MV8UU

What about the anxiety/obsessive component? Basal ganglia dysfunction in animals CBT?

Other Evolutionary Perspectives on Mental Illness

Murphy and Stich: domain-specific modules are malfunctioning Could explain 4 dimensions of OCD as 4 different

neural pathways/domains of functioning

Feygin et al.: 4 domains are threat-avoidance based

Table 2. Possible Adaptive Functions Underlying Systems Dysregulated in OCD

Name of Symptom Dimension Symptoms Involved Possible Normal Function of

A ffe c te d B ra in S y s te m s

Forbidden Thoughts

Violent intrusive thoughts, “magical thinking,” checking rituals, religious/sexual obsessions

Causal relationships; precautionary measures to avoid danger

Cleaning Contamination fears, cleaning/washing

Avoidance of pathogens

Symmetry Ordering/repeating rituals,

obsessions with numbers, patterns, symmetry, exactness

Intuitive patterns/ mathematics; by-product of organized brain

Hoarding Hoarding behaviors Resource acquisition

Life without any level of OCD symptoms at all?

OCD sufferers are one extreme of the polygenetic trait, what about the other extreme?

Evolution as the only perspective

All research domains of biology and psychology are moving towards becoming evolutionary in nature Does not require strong adaptationism, but

might include it

Discussion

The article describes a mental disorder as a harmful dysfunction. Do you think this is accurate? Do you think this qualifies OCD as a mental disorder, in either our modern environment or the EEA?

Discussion

Broadening this evolutionary approach to other abnormal disorders, what possible adaptations could other disorders have provided to our fitness in the EEA? Or are they mostly by-products? How can we be sure?