Animal Learning and Motivation and Addictive Drugs

Abstract

Highlights of a systematic analysis of the abstracts of over 1700 publications dealing with addictive drugs (primarily alcohol) in the context of animal learning and motivation are summarized under two main headings. The behavioral effects of drugs vary with the nature of the drug, the dosage, and the behavioral baseline; behavioral tolerance frequently results from continued practice in the drug state. The paradigmatic effects show that drugs can function effectively as conditional stimuli, unconditional stimuli, responses, and reinforcers. As a result, drug habits develop their own motivational support, leading to conditioned tolerance and conditioned addiction. It is contended that principles of animal behavior can provide a basis for a theory of human drug use and abuse, but that voluntary control of addictive behavior requires uniquely human cognitive processes.

Theories of addiction

“…This editorial has not attempted a critique of any one theory, still less a comparative analysis of the merits of different theories. The articles Bradizza et al, 1994 A conditioning reinterpretation of cognitive events in alcohol and drug cue exposure Kalivas et al, 1998 A role for sensitization in craving and relapse in cocaine addiction Koob et al, 1997 Opponent process model and psychostimulant addiction Logan, 1993 Animal learning and motivation and addictive drugs Schulteis & Koob, 1996 Reinforcement processes in opiate addiction: a homeostatic model…”

The behavioral economics of will in recovery from addiction

“…Hyperbolic discounting provides a bottomup basis for the intuitive learning of choice bundling, the properties of which match common descriptions of willpower. We suggest that the bundling effect can also be discerned in the advice of 12-step programs.Recovery from addiction is a distinctly human phenomenon (Logan, 1993), can be extraordinarily abrupt without any obvious changes in contingencies (Premack, 1970, Miller andC'de Baca, 2001), and is commonly described in spiritual terms (Bien and Bien, 2002). Thus it may seem that although behavioral economic and other reductionist approaches are productively applied to the onset of addiction, they are not applicable to studying recovery from addiction (for example, see Miller's 2003 discussion of his skepticism).…”

Motivational interviewing in drug abuse services: A randomized trial.

“…Reluctance to change problematic drug use may be viewed as a special case within the larger psychology of motivation and self-regulation (Heather, Miller, & Greeley, 1991; Miller & Brown, 1991). Logan (1993) has opined that although the acquisition of drug dependence can be readily understood via basic principles of learning and conditioning, animal models for human rehabilitation are limited, and the escape from drug problems is likely to draw upon higher human cognitive processes.…”