Compulsive-like habits might also derive from the so-called dark side of the withdrawal/negative affect stage. In a study of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, patients showed enhanced avoidance habits compared with controls following overtraining on a shock avoidance task, providing support for a habit account of obsessive-compulsive disorder.83 Whether a deficient inhibitory process in prefrontal regions or overactive goal-directed actions and habit processes in the basal ganglia mediate this effect remains to be determined, but the enhancement of avoidance habits provides another basis for the contribution of activation of the stress axis to compulsive-like responding.
