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PubMed1980

The effect of pimozide on the establishment of conditioned reinforcement.

The effect of pimozide on conditioned reinforcement was determined by comparing rate of lever pressing for a tone in groups previously treated with or without the drug when the tone was paired with food. Eight groups of six to eight rats each received three phases of training in a two-lever box. The pre-exposure phase measured the operant rate of pressing the two levers, one of which produced a 3s tone. In the conditioning phase, with the levers absent, the tone was paired with food over four sessions. The test phase again measured the rate of pressing the two levers. In an undrugged experimental group (i.e., Paradigm group), the number of presses on the tone lever significantly increased from the pre-exposure to the test phase, thereby confirming that the procedure could establish conditioned reinforcement. A control group receiving tones and pellets randomly during the conditioning phase also showed conditioned reinforcement but a group receiving negatively correlated tones and pellets did not. Groups receiving the dopamine-receptor blocker pimozide (1.0 mg/kg) prior to each conditioning session failed to show conditioned reinforcement in the test session. Control groups ruled out state dependent learning and drug-induced performance impairments as explanations of this pimozide-related effect. These data may indicate a possible role for dopamine neurons in mediating the control of behavior by certain positive reinforcing stimuli.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Social reinforcement: a treatment component in verbal self-instructional training.

This study investigated the effects of noncontingent social reinforcement on social and academic behaviors in grade school children. Twenty-four children in the second through fifth grades were selected on the basis of teacher ratings of disruptive behavior. Subjects were divided into a high social reinforcement verbal self-instructional (VSI) training group, a low social reinforcement VSI group, and a no-contact control group. Children in VSI groups were removed from their classrooms during four 40-minute periods and given VSI training. Significant between-groups differences on measures of social reinforcement were found indicating its successful manipulation. While none of the dependent measures indicated significant differences between experimental groups, a consistent pattern of difference scores emerged giving limited support to the hypothesis that noncontingent social reinforcement contributed to behavioral gains. Results are discussed in terms of the need for future research on the effects of rapport on treatment outcome.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1982

Sensory reinforcement in the mentally handicapped and autistic child: a review.

Sensory reinforcement was first studied by learning theorists working with animals in the 1950s. Attempts to examine the phenomenon with children followed in the 1960s, and the studies demonstrated that sensory stimuli could act like any other reinforcers with normal young children. Similar work with the autistic and mentally handicapped child arose in relation to both the study of receptor development and more treatment-oriented research. It now seems that even profoundly handicapped children can learn to operate simple levers when reinforced by sensory stimuli, and some handicapped children have learned quite complex skills through sensory reinforcement. There also appears to be a close relationship between stereotyped behavior and sensory reinforcement. The clinical implications of the studies reviewed are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Using obsessions as reinforcers with and without mild reductive procedures to decrease inappropriate behaviors of children with autism.

We assessed the effectiveness of using the obsessions of children with autism to reduce their inappropriate behaviors. Baseline consisted of a traditional differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO) in which food reinforcers were provided contingent upon a period of nonoccurrence of the inappropriate behaviors. Then, three treatment conditions were assessed using a multielement design. One condition provided objects of obsession as reinforcers for periods of nonoccurrence of the inappropriate behaviors. A second condition also provided the obsessions as reinforcers, but in conjunction with mild reductive procedures (verbal "no", time-out). A final condition used the food reinforcers of baseline, but with mild reductive procedures. Results indicated that all three treatment conditions were more effective than the traditional food DRO of baseline. The most effective condition was the obsessions plus mild reductive procedures. Results are discussed in terms of recommendations for effective treatment planning.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1988

Producing speech use in nonverbal autistic children by reinforcing attempts.

It has been extremely difficult to teach speech to severely handicapped nonverbal autistic children. However, an overview of the literature suggests the possibility that selecting aspects of motivation as a central target behavior, rather than concentrating on motor speech production per se, may improve the effectiveness of teaching speech to these children. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to compare two different reinforcement conditions; one in which successive motor approximations of speech sounds were reinforced; and a "motivation" condition in which attempts to produce speech sounds were reinforced, without any motor shaping of speech. The results, replicated within a repeated reversal disign, showed that reinforcing speech attempts was more effective than reinforcing motor speech sounds with respect to (a) the children's interest, enthusiasm, happiness, and general behavior during treatment; and (b) improvements in the children's speech production. The results are discussed in terms of their relationship to the literature on normal parent-child speech interaction, success and failure, and learned helplessness.

Affect↗
PubMed1993

Heroin self-administration in rats under a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement.

Heroin self-administration behavior under a progressive ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement was evaluated in rats. The schedule was designed to restrict drug intake, minimize opiate dependency, and quantify the number of responses emitted (final response ratio) in order to receive a limited number of heroin infusions. Final ratios were found to be stable and did not increase with chronic (31 days) PR reinforcement. The ability of the PR schedule to detect changes in heroin reinforcement was demonstrated by evaluating the effect of naltrexone pretreatment and unit dose alteration on final ratios. Naltrexone (0.4 mg/kg) reduced final ratios and an inverted U dose-response relationship was established for the unit heroin doses 12.5-100 micrograms/injection. Maximal final ratios occurred with 50 micrograms/injection heroin reinforcement. This PR schedule may provide a useful method for evaluating the effects of pharmacological manipulations or lesions on opiate reinforcement.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

The behavioral economics of concurrent drug reinforcers: a review and reanalysis of drug self-administration research.

In economics, goods can function as substitutes, complements, or be independent of one another. These concepts refer to increases, decreases, or no change in the consumption of one item as the price of a second item increases. This review examined whether these economic terms can be used to describe relationships between concurrently available reinforcers in drug self-administration research. Sixteen drug self-administration studies that examined the effects of concurrent reinforcers were identified through a MEDLINE search. Across these studies, the following substances were employed: caffeinated coffee, cocaine, etonitazene, ethanol, heroin, food, methadone, morphine, nicotine cigarettes, pentobarbital, phencyclidine, sucrose and water. These studies were reanalyzed and the results were shown to be consistent with these economic notions. These analyses also showed that relationships among the concurrently available reinforcers were reliable within and across studies, that concurrently available reinforcers can affect each other asymmetrically, and that the relative price may determine the magnitude of effect for substitutes. These findings suggest that these economic concepts may be useful in characterizing the type and magnitude of interactions between concurrently available reinforcers and may suggest potential mechanisms that determine these relationships.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reinforcement concept in investigations on simple nervous systems.

An analysis of the applicability of the concept of reinforcement to the studies of learning in simple nervous systems of invertebrates is made. Analysis of the literature data and my own results suggests that reinforcement cannot be regarded as an independent behavioral phenomenon. A description of reinforcement as a state of the nervous system which precedes long-term changes of behavior is given. Using the example of aversive conditioning to food in gastropod snails it is shown that a state of the network that can be correlated with the state of reinforcement can be elicited in the simple nervous system by activation of serotonergic pedal cells modulating avoidance behavior of the animal. The conclusion is made that with certain limitations the reinforcement concept can be used in studies on simple nervous systems.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of partial reinforcement on conditioning, conditional probabilities, asymptotic performance, and extinction of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response.

Classical conditioning and extinction of the rabbit nictitating membrane response was investigated under 100 per cent, and two 50 per cent reinforcement conditions (50% equated total trials, and 50% equated reinforced trials) at average intertrial intervals (ITIs) of 30 and 60 sec. It was found that: (1) partial reinforcement reduced the rate of conditioning, but all groups eventually attained asymptomatic performance levels near 100 per cent; (2) first-order and second-order conditional probabilities following reinforced and nonreinforced trials were virtually identical; and (3) no partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE) was observed.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A functional analysis of social reinforcement in vicarious verbal conditioning.

This article reports the results of 629 subjects in three experiments designed to replicate and extend the phenomenon of vicarious verbal conditioning. Experiment I replicated the finding that subjects who responded most to vicarious verbal conditioning were aware of the contingency involved. Experiment II attempted to examine the effects of prior history with the verbal reinforcer on vicarious verbal conditioning by providing seven groups of subjects with varying classic conditioning histories prior to vicarious verbal conditioning. The null results associated with this experiment were hypothesized to be due to the fact that the vicarious verbal conditioning took place in a language laboratory where the subjects could hear but not see the model. Experiment III replicated Experiment II in a live group context as was done in Experiment I. The results showed that vicarious verbal conditioning was again found to take place, that associating the verbal reinforcer with a tone or tone plus money via forward classic conditioning potentiated the effects of the verbal reinforcer, that backward classic conditioning did not potentiate the reinforcer, d) nor did either of two sensitization procedures potentiate the effects of the verbal reinforcer. Both aware and unaware subjects evidenced vicarious verbal conditioning.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Cytotoxic lesions of the retrohippocampal region attenuate latent inhibition but spare the partial reinforcement extinction effect.

Experiment I assessed the effect of cytotoxic retrohippocampal (entorhinal and extra-subicular cortices) lesions on the development of latent inhibition (LI) using an off-the-baseline, between-subjects, conditioned emotional response paradigm. Sham-operated controls and unoperated rats that had been pre-exposed to a light stimulus prior to light-shock pairings showed less conditioned suppression towards the light stimulus than the nonpre-exposed animals, thus demonstrating LI. However, LI was not evident in rats with retrohippocampal lesions. In experiment 2, the same animals were trained to run in an straight runway for food. Half of the animals were trained under a 50% partial reinforcement schedule (i.e. they were rewarded randomly on half of the acquisition trials) and the other half were trained under a continuous reinforcement schedule (i.e. they were rewarded on every acquisition trial). When tested in extinction, animals trained on the partial reinforcement schedule showed greater persistence than animals trained on continuous reinforcement, thus demonstrating the partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE). Rats with retrohippocampal lesions showed a PREE that was at least as clear as that seen in the sham-operated controls and in the unoperated animals. It is concluded that cytotoxic lesions of the retrohippocampal region selectively led to an abolition of LI, but spared the PREE. The present study thus provided evidence against the hypothesis that LI and the PREE share a common neural substrate.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Observing responses maintained by stimuli associated with cocaine or remifentanil reinforcement in rhesus monkeys.

RATIONALE: The stimuli associated with drug reinforcement may be particularly relevant to drug abuse and relapse. OBJECTIVES: The study measured behavior maintained by conditioned reinforcing stimuli in an observing response procedure. METHODS: The experiment was conducted with rhesus monkeys in three stages: 1) discriminative control was established by reinforcing responding on one lever with either intravenous cocaine or remifentanil in the presence of one stimulus and extinguishing the response in the presence of another stimulus, 2) discriminative control was suspended by not presenting the stimuli, and 3) a final stage was implemented wherein the stimuli from the first stage were presented only when one or more responses were made on a second (observing) lever. RESULTS: Under FR1 conditions, observing responses were maintained at low rates, but increased markedly when the response requirement was increased. CONCLUSIONS: The procedure maintained observing responses quite well and may be useful to an analysis of conditioned reinforcement based on drug reinforcement.

Anesthetics, Intravenous↗
PubMed2003

Unconditional hyperactivity and transient reinforcing effects of NMDA administration into the ventral tegmental area in rats.

RATIONALE: The dopaminergic projection from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens plays an important role in positive reinforcement and locomotion. Intra-VTA administration of many drugs capable of activating these neurons has been shown to be reinforcing and induce locomotion. Administration of the excitatory amino acid NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) into the VTA may likewise be positively reinforcing, because it stimulates the meso-accumbens dopamine system and locomotion. OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: Locomotor-rearing experiments were conducted to pinpoint the range of NMDA concentrations that induce significant locomotion and rearing, and to determine whether co-administration of the glycine binding site agonist d-serine would enhance the effects of NMDA administration into the VTA. Reinforcing effects of NMDA were assessed by intracranial self-administration procedures: a lever-press delivered a 75-nl infusion containing NMDA (0.1, 0.3 or 1.0 mM) plus serine into the VTA or an adjacent region, the supramammillary nucleus. RESULTS: Co-administration of serine slightly enhanced rearing induced by NMDA administration. Administration of NMDA at concentrations of 0.3 or 1.0 mM (500 nl) induced vigorous locomotion and rearing. NMDA (0.3 mM) was self-administered into the VTA slightly more than vehicle in the first or second sessions, yet this small reinforcing effect became irregular in subsequent sessions. The rats did not learn to self-administer NMDA into the supramammillary nucleus. CONCLUSIONS: Ventral tegmental NMDA injections, in the concentration range that induced marked unconditional hyperactivity, supported only marginal and transient self-administration.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Interactions between the reinforcing effects of cocaine and heroin in a drug-vs-food choice procedure in rhesus monkeys: a dose-addition analysis.

RATIONALE: Concurrent abuse of cocaine and heroin is a common form of polydrug abuse, but the interactions between the reinforcing effects of cocaine and heroin are poorly understood. Dose-addition analysis is a tool for the quantitative assessment of drug interactions, but this analysis has not been applied to evaluation of the reinforcing effects of cocaine and heroin. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate interactions between the reinforcing effects of cocaine and heroin using dose-addition analysis. METHODS: Rhesus monkeys were trained under a concurrent-choice schedule of food delivery (1 gm pellets) and drug injections (cocaine or heroin, 0-0.1 mg kg(-1) injection(-1)). Full dose-effect curves were determined for cocaine alone and heroin alone. Subsequently, full dose-effect curves were determined for three fixed-proportion mixtures of cocaine and heroin (fixed proportions of 1:3.2, 1:1 and 3.2:1 cocaine/heroin). Dose-addition analysis was used to assess whether cocaine/heroin interactions were super-additive, additive, or sub-additive. RESULTS: Cocaine, heroin, and all cocaine/heroin mixtures maintained dose-dependent and monotonic increases in drug choice and dose-dependent decreases in response rates. Choice dose-effect curves for cocaine/heroin mixtures were shifted to the left of dose-effect curves for cocaine or heroin alone, and dose-addition analysis indicated that cocaine/heroin interactions on drug choice were sub-additive or additive. Cocaine/heroin interactions on response-rate measures were also sub-additive or additive. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm that mixtures of cocaine and heroin produce reinforcing effects in rhesus monkeys; however, cocaine/heroin interactions were only or sub-additive or additive. Thus, these results do not support the hypothesis that simultaneously delivered cocaine and heroin produces super-additive reinforcing effects.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Reinforcing effects of smoked methamphetamine in rhesus monkeys.

RATIONALE: The occurrence of methamphetamine (METH) use by the smoking route is increasing. A nonhuman primate model for examining the reinforcing effects of smoked METH would be valuable for testing potential interventions for treating METH abuse disorders. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to examine the reinforcing effects of smoked METH in monkeys. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four rhesus monkeys were trained to smoke cocaine (COC) under a chain fixed-ratio (FR) 64 lever press, FR 5 inhalation schedule of reinforcement. Upon observing stable levels of self-administration, METH was substituted for COC and a dose-response function for METH (0.08-0.8 mg/kg) was determined. Subsequently, the number of deliveries of COC (1 mg/kg), and 0.2 and 0.8 mg/kg METH were examined across increasing response requirements. RESULTS: METH was dose-dependently self-administered. Higher doses of METH (0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg/kg) produced asymptotic levels of responding that were slightly lower than those obtained with 1 mg/kg COC. Numbers of deliveries of COC and METH decreased as response requirement increased. METH, however, maintained fewer deliveries than 1 mg/kg COC at most response requirements. CONCLUSIONS: METH is readily self-administered by smoking in rhesus monkeys when substituted for COC. METH may have a lower reinforcing strength than COC, but further research is needed to fully characterize its relative reinforcing strength.

Amphetamine-Related Disorders↗
PubMed2007

Delay discounting predicts cigarette smoking in a laboratory model of abstinence reinforcement.

RATIONALE: Higher rates of delay discounting, or impulsive choice, may be related to relapse during abstinence reinforcement interventions for cigarette smoking, and a transdermal nicotine patch may attenuate delay discounting. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study are to assess the relation between delay discounting and smoking after nicotine deprivation in a laboratory model of abstinence reinforcement and the effects of a transdermal nicotine patch on discounting and smoking. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Smokers with no self-reported intention to quit were randomly assigned to an active (14 mg) or placebo patch group (n = 15 per group). In each of three sessions, after a 3-h deprivation period, participants completed a delay discounting task, mood, and craving measures and finally engaged in a laboratory model of abstinence reinforcement. Three abstinence reinforcement conditions were presented in counterbalanced order across the three sessions. During the control session, monetary consequences were delivered every 30 s regardless of smoking. During the low (5.00 dollars available) and high (20.00 dollars available) sessions, participants could earn a progressively increasing amount of money for each 30 s period of abstinence. RESULTS: The low and high conditions significantly increased the latency to smoke relative to control and significantly decreased the amount of smoking. The nicotine patch decreased negative affect, but it did not significantly affect delay discounting or smoking. Individuals who smoked during the low and high conditions showed higher rates of discounting. CONCLUSION: The patch did not attenuate delay discounting or smoking after a period of deprivation, but contingencies for abstinence significantly decreased smoking. Higher rates of delay discounting were related to smoking in a model of abstinence reinforcement treatment.

Administration, Cutaneous↗
PubMed2000

Cocaine-seeking by rats: regulation, reinforcement and activation.

RATIONALE: In animal models of drug self-administration, response rates often decrease with dose suggesting that a regulative process may mask the reinforcing effects of the drug. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present experiments was to dissociate the role of regulative and reinforcement processes in intravenous cocaine self-administration by rats using a paradigm that explicitly distinguishes between drug-seeking and drug-taking. METHODS: Rats were trained to respond for intravenous cocaine (0.25 mg/infusion) under a heterogeneous chain (tandem FR1 RI 30 s) FR1 schedule of reinforcement using different levers in the first (seeking) and second (taking) links of the chain. After 10 days of training, rats were switched to one of three doses of cocaine (0.08, 0.25, or 0.5 mg/infusion) and self-administration patterns were recorded for a further ten sessions in experiment 1. In experiment 2, a time-out (TO) period (0, 4, or 12 min) was imposed between successive cycles of the chain schedule. Finally, the effect of allowing animals to perform a drug-taking response on subsequent drug-seeking was assessed in experiment 3. RESULTS: Having verified that seeking responses for a conventional reinforcer (sucrose) were sensitive to changes in reward magnitude, experiment 1 demonstrated that the number of self-administered infusions was inversely related to dose whereas the latency to initiate drug-seeking increased with dose. Variations in the cocaine dose had no reliable effect on the number of drug seeking response per cycle of the chain schedule. The effect of dose on the latency to initiate drug-seeking was reversed in experiment 2 with increasing TO periods. Moreover, at the longest TO period, drug-seeking responses per cycle increased and the latency to initiate drug seeking decreased with dose. Experiment 3 showed that the latency to drug-seek for the low dose was reduced dramatically when the first drug-seeking response was preceded by a drug-taking response, even when this response did not produce a drug infusion. CONCLUSIONS: The overall pattern of results suggests that drug-seeking and drug-taking are controlled by three interacting processes: a regulative process depresses drug-seeking in the short-term; behavioral activation enhances drug-seeking and is sustained over longer intervals by higher drug doses; the reinforcing effect of cocaine increases with dose once the satiety producing effects of the drug dissipate.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Naltrexone reduces ethanol- and sucrose-reinforced responding in rhesus monkeys.

These experiments evaluated the ability of naltrexone (NTX) to reduce selectively oral and i.v. ethanol-reinforced responding, and examined the ethanol-NTX interaction in terms of the competitive opioid antagonist property of NTX. Five rhesus monkeys self-administered ethanol or sucrose and concurrently available water. Ethanol concentration was varied from 0.25% to 8% (w/v). Naltrexone (0.032-0.32 mg/kg) or saline was given i.m. 30 min prior to some drinking sessions. NTX (0.32 mg/kg) reduced ethanol-reinforced responding at the concentration that maintained the most responding (1% or 2%). NTX (0.1 mg/kg) reduced ethanol-reinforced responding, both at a low ethanol concentration (0.25%) that produced little ethanol intake (g/kg), and at a higher concentration (4%) with an appreciable intake. Thus, NTX (0.1 mg/kg) shifted the ethanol concentration-consumption curve down, in an insurmountable manner. NTX (0.1 and 0.32 mg/kg) also reduced reinforced responding for sucrose 100 g/l. In another experiment, three rhesus monkeys were given opportunities to self-administer ethanol i.v. NTX (0.1 mg/kg) reduced the number of ethanol injections obtained by the monkeys at all ethanol doses tested (0.01, 0.032, and 0.1 g/kg per injection). The dose-effect curve was also shifted down. These results showed that NTX reduced behavior maintained by either ethanol or sucrose non-selectively. Furthermore, the ability of NTX to suppress ethanol-reinforced responding did not depend on the route of ethanol administration and was not overcome by increasing the concentration or dose per injection of ethanol.

Administration, Oral↗