Behavioral economic demand as a unifying language for addiction science: Promoting collaboration and integration of animal and human models.

Abstract

The intersection of pharmacological, psychological, and economic theory within behavioral economics has helped advance an understanding of substance use disorder. A notable contribution of this approach is the conceptualization of reinforcement from a behavioral economic demand perspective. Demand analyses provide a multidimensional view of reinforcement in which distinct behavioral mechanisms are measured that impact decision making and drug consumption. This review describes the state of research on behavioral economic demand as a common language for addiction science researchers across varied model systems and stages of a translational continuum. We first provide an overview of the theoretical concepts and procedures used to evaluate demand in animal and human models. The potential for demand to serve as a common language for diverse research groups in psychopharmacology and addiction science (e.g., those evaluating neurobehavioral outcomes, medications development, clinical practice) is then described. An overview is also provided of existing empirical studies that, while small in number, suggest good linguistic and conceptual overlap between animal and human demand models when studying biological, environmental, and pharmacological individual difference vulnerabilities underlying drug-taking behavior. Refinement of methodological procedures and incorporation of more nuanced environmental features should help improve correspondence between animal and human demand studies as well as clinical translation of such findings. Our hope is that this review and commentary ultimately serves as inspiration for new collaborative efforts involving behavioral economic demand between animal and human researchers who share a common goal of improving substance use treatment outcomes and broader psychological wellbeing.

Applying Mixed-Effects Modeling to Behavioral Economic Demand: An Introduction

“…The concept of behavioral economic demand (hereafter "demand") has proven useful in a variety of settings including drug addiction (Acuff et al, 2020;Aston & Cassidy, 2019;González-Roz et al, 2019;Strickland, Campbell, et al, 2020a;Strickland & Lacy, 2020), public policy (Hursh & Roma, 2013), health behaviors (Bickel et al, 2016), and others (Gilroy, Kaplan, & Leader, 2018a;Hayashi et al, 2019;Henley et al, 2016;Kaplan et al, 2017;Reed et al, 2016;Strickland, Marks, & Bolin, 2020b;Yates et al, 2019). Demand has been evaluated in both humans and nonhuman animals (Bentzley et al, 2012;Fragale et al, 2017;Strickland & Lacy, 2020). Methods for elucidating trends in consumption and demand have included experiential self-administration (Johnson & Bickel, 2006) and hypothetical responding (Strickland, Campbell, et al, 2020a).…”

Reinforcing and Stimulant-Like Effects of Methamphetamine Isomers in Rhesus Macaques

“…Simple FR schedules of reinforcement, such as those used in the present study, have been employed to study the relative abuse potential of investigational compounds but are not designed to directly measure reinforcing effectiveness de Moura et al, 2021). Behavioral economic analysis applied to simple FR schedules of reinforcement is a powerful complement, providing a quantitative metric of demand for a reinforcer that can be compared across studies with various reinforcers, doses, and treatment regimens (Strickland & Lacy, 2020). Such claims are supported by results from the current study as the elasticity of consumption for each drug studied was found to be dose independent, highlighting the potential utility of this approach for generalizations of reinforcer essential value across factors that influence drug intake (Bickel et al, 1990;Strickland & Lacy, 2020).…”

“…Behavioral economic analysis applied to simple FR schedules of reinforcement is a powerful complement, providing a quantitative metric of demand for a reinforcer that can be compared across studies with various reinforcers, doses, and treatment regimens (Strickland & Lacy, 2020). Such claims are supported by results from the current study as the elasticity of consumption for each drug studied was found to be dose independent, highlighting the potential utility of this approach for generalizations of reinforcer essential value across factors that influence drug intake (Bickel et al, 1990;Strickland & Lacy, 2020). Maximum intensity, however, showed dosedependent differences; while the maximum intensity for l-MA overlapped with the other stimulants at the peak dose, a 1/2-log increase in dose resulted in a lesser maximum intensity for l-MA compared to MCAT.…”

Integrating Operant and Cognitive Behavioral Economics to Inform Infectious Disease Response: Prevention, Testing, and Vaccination in the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The unique lens by which behavioral economics is used to describes behavior not only provides novel means of interpreting socially important concerns, but also the various facets of the dependent variables generated in these experiments render them especially useful for informing translational public policy [20,[22][23][24]. For example, operant arrangements can quantify the effective price at which demand for a commodity shifts from inelastic (when a one unit increase .…”

“…The unique lens by which behavioral economics is used to describes behavior not only provides novel means of interpreting socially important concerns, but also the various facets of the dependent variables generated in these experiments render them especially useful for informing translational public policy [20, 22-24]. For example, operant arrangements can quantify the effective price at which demand for a commodity shifts from inelastic (when a one unit increase in price is met with less than one unit decrease in consumption) to elastic (when a one unit increase in price is met with more than one unit decrease in consumption) for the consumer, while also modeling expected revenue on the part of the supplier.…”