Journal
PHARMACOLOGY BIOCHEMISTRY AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 86, Issue 4, Pages 774-777Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.pbb.2007.03.005
Keywords
self-administration; learning; nose-poke response; lever press; rat
Funding
- Intramural NIH HHS [Z99 DA999999] Funding Source: Medline
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According to a recent account of addiction, dopaminergic effects of drugs like cocaine mimic the neuronal signal that occurs when a natural reward has a larger value than expected. Consequently, the drug's expected reward value increases with each administration, leading to an over-selection of drug-seeking behavior. One prediction of this hypothesis is that the blocking effect, a cornerstone of contemporary teaming theory, should not occur with drug reinforcers. To test this prediction, two groups of rats were trained to self-administer cocaine with a nose-poking response. For 5 sessions, a tone was paired with each self-administered injection (blocking group), or no stimulus was paired with injection (non-blocking group). Then, in both groups, the tone and a light were both paired with each injection for 5 sessions. In subsequent testing, the light functioned as a conditioned reinforcer for a new response (lever-pressing) in the non-blocking group, but not the blocking group. Thus, contrary to prediction, pre-training with the tone blocked conditioning to the light. Although these results fail to support a potentially powerful explanation of addiction, they are consistent with the fact that most conditioning and teaming phenomena that occur with non-drug reinforcers can also be demonstrated with drug reinforcers. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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