Siegel, 1976
Demonstration of addiction,
tolerance and withdrawal or
Cues are EVERYWHERE!
Defining Addiction
• remember it’s the 1970’s
– DSM II going into DSM III
– addiction = psychological process
• Define tolerance and addiction
– addiction = psychological need (at this point)
– tolerance:
• decreasing effectiveness of drug
• requiring increasing amounts to get same effect
• become dependent on drug
– withdrawal:
• physiological symptoms which occur with withdrawal of drug
• suggests dependence
Do Animals Show “Addiction”?
• Most animals will not begin drugs on their own
– have to “preload”
– initial response to drugs such as morphine =
decreased responding
– then increase in responding to gain access
• do show tolerance and withdrawal
– once addicted, process is same
– symptoms overlap as well
– thus: indicates must be physiological in nature, not
just “psychological”
Opiate Tolerance:
• Emphasizes associative characteristics of drug
administrative procedure
– shows that it is the associative pairing that may be critical
– notes that tolerance is maintained over long time periods,
and even after ECS
• Show several characteristics
– retention of tolerance is long and strong
– metabolic intervention changes parameters of tolerance
– retardation of consolidation of tolerance when add
memory disruptors as learning (e.g. ECS, etc.)
Opponent processes in classical
conditioning
• Drug Tolerance Research:
– drug tolerance = decrease in effectiveness of a drug
with repeated usage
– many theories as to why occurs- e.g.- opponent
process theory
• Seigel (1975): proposed is due to classical
conditioning:
• used morphine (analgesic)
• decrease in analgesia over successive morphine injections
controlled by contextual stimuli
Original study: Rats and hot plate
• Rats given injections of morphine across several
stimulus trials:
– first three trials• kept context cues identical
• got decreasing analgesia
– 4th trial• changed location of injections to home cage• got increase in analgesic effects
• why: context cues acquired capacity to elicit
compensatory CR's of hyperalgesia; when changed
context, these cues were gone
Siegel: CR not equal UR!
• Difficult to predict form of the CR:
– may be identical to very similar
– may be opposite
– Compensatory responses: compensate for or
counteract the UR
• Literature review at the time supported this.
Opponent Process:
• Time curve analysis of
these responses:
• opponent
processes
• for every action
there is a reaction!
Can Predict Response?
• Figure A: drug not yet associated with predrug
environmental cues; drug effect not yet modulated by
any anticipatory responding
• Figure B:
– as effect of drug increases and decays following
administration, increasing frequency of drug and
environmental context pairing
– drug administration not only followed by
pharmacological UCR, but also by drug compensatory
CR
– net drug effect is smaller than initial because drug UR
is attenuated by compensatory CR
Can Predict Response?
• Figure C:
– Interaction between drug UR and preparatory CR
after many trials
– CR is large, net result of interaction between this
CR and direct drug effect is very small
– Note: Biphasic: paradoxical conditioning or
opposite conditioning effect!
– Can actually become HYPERSENSITIVE to effects at
higher dosage!
– This is how you die!
• So: what are withdrawal symptoms?
Learning Effects?
• Physical Effects:
–
–
–
–
body again rebounding
expecting something- but not happening
step down reflex: Alpha and Beta Receptors
if go on long enough: Marilyn Monroe
• Notice: Learning effects:
– needle begins to be CS for heroin
– but notice: opposite effect (process B) to the needle
– stimuli can become conditioned to the "emotion"
What stimuli can serve as cues?
• ANY environmental cue predicting drug
• tolerance occurs because of context of environmental cues
that predict drug
• in sense, tolerance is a learning effect, not a true drug
effect
• what are cues?
– Environmental
– Physical
– Psychological
What stimuli can serve as cues?
• Environmental cues:
– the place setting: room, lighting, sounds, etc.
– the experimenter
– time of day
– olfactory cues
• Physical effects of the drug
– state of body
– initial effects
What stimuli can serve as cues?
• signaled vs. unsignaled cues:
– much stronger conditioning to signaled cues
– more predictive!
• can develop discriminative control of
tolerance
– show in some settings, not in others
– can have VARIED response to same drug,
and dose!
How can we retard tolerance?
• CS habituation
• Partial reinforcement of tolerance:
– Different strengths of street drugs
– not all CSs followed by US/same US
– dilute CS-US relationship
• extinction of tolerance
The Expectancy Effect
• expect effects dependent on environmental
cues
• thus, show compensatory responses when
“expect” drug
• these are simply withdrawal effects
look at responses compared in table
6.2 on page 157
Humans react the same!
What does this mean for applied setting?
• Must pay attention to environmental cues
• both intentional cues
• and unintentional cues
• remember that this learning is VERY robust!
•
•
•
•
May be stronger than you think
even smallest cues, if reinforced, can maintain the behavior
explains why relapse is so common and prevalent
also explains why so difficult to treat:
• detox and treatment centers vs real world
• what happens when put individuals back into their original setting?
Real World Situations
• Vietnam drug addiction experience
– Not show when got home
– Why?
• animals can show strong relapse as well
• inadvertent cues SO powerful
• bottom line: conditioning occurs EVERYWHERE!