15.2 - Role of Learning in Drug Tolerance

Question 1

what is contingent drug tolerance

Answer 1

demonstrations tha tolerance develops only to drug effects that are actually experienced

Question 2

what is the before and after design

Answer 2

two groups, one gets the drug before some test, the other gets tested then the drug
- in the experimental task, the drug is given before the test to assess tolerance effects

Question 3

explain the Pinel, Mana and Kim study on alcohol and anticonvulsants

Answer 3

before and after design, alcohol and amygdala stimulation to elicit convulsions
only the before group demonstrated tolerance the he anticonvulsive effects

Question 4

what is conditioned drug tolerance

Answer 4

demonstrations that tolerance effects are maximally expressed only when a drug is administered in the same situation in which is has been admin. previously

Question 5

explain the Crowell, Hinson and Siegel experiment on conditioned drug tolerance in rats

Answer 5

two groups of rats with same saline - alcohol regimen - only diff was that the one group received their injections in a distinctive test rom and the saline in the regular room, while the other group was flipped
- tolerance to hypothermic effects of alcohol was tested in both environments 0 tolerance was obersved only if the rats that had the env paired with alcohol

Question 6

what is the type of conditioned drug tolerance found in the Crowell Hinson and Siegel experiment on rats
- what are the three terms used to describe the findings

Answer 6

Situational specificity of drug tolerance

1. large
2. reliable
3. general

Question 7

How can conditioned drug tolerance lead to death?

Answer 7

Drug overdose is easier to come by if an individual takes a similar to their normal dose of a drug in a new environment
- Siegel and colleagues proved this - more heroine tolerant rats died following a high dose of heroine in a novel env than in the usual one

Question 8

what is Siegel’s view of Conditioned compensatory response?

Answer 8

• pavlovian conditioning
• environmental stimuli that predict drug admin are conditioned stim
• Drug effect are unconditioned
• conditional stim elicit conditioned responses opposite to the unconditional effects of the drugs
• Broadly - conditioned stim that regularly predict a drugs effect come to elicit greater and greater compensatory responses, which increasingly counteract the unconditioned effects of the drug and produce situationally specific tolerance

Question 9

what other theory is Siegel’s comparable to?

Answer 9

Wood’s theory of mealtime hunger
- stimuli that predict homeostasis disrupting effects of meals trigger conditioned compensatory responses to minimize a meals disruptive effects int he same way that stimuli that predict homeostasis disrupting effects fo a drug conditioned compensatory responses to minimize the drugs disruptive effects

Question 10

what have most studies of conditioned drug tolerance focussed on?
what is this?
are these the only possible stimuli?

Answer 10

exteroceptive stimuli - external ad public stimuli such as an environment - as the conditioned stimuli
no, interoceptive stimuli are also effective
- thoughts and feeling s produced by the drug taking ritual and drug effects experienced after administration can come to reduce the impact as well

Question 11

why is the point about interoceptive stimuli important?

Answer 11

just thinking ab a drug can evoke conditioned compensatory responses

Question 12

what is the opposite of drug tolerance

Answer 12

drug sensitization

Question 13

can drug sensitization be situationally specific?

- give a study as an example

Answer 13

yes

• Anagnostaras and Robinson - situational specific of sensitization in the motor stimulant effects fo amphetamine
• 10 amph injections every 3 or 4 days increased the ability of amphetamine to activate the motor activity fo rats, but only when they were injected in the same env in which they had experienced the previous injections

Question 14

what other effects are similar to the conditioned compensatory responses? why?

Answer 14

withdrawal effects

• produced by elimination of the drug from the body, whereas conditioned compensatory responses are elicited by drug-predictive cues inn the absence of the drug.
• almost impossible to tell them apart in real life

Question 15

what is the major problem with most theories of conditioned drug tolerance?

Answer 15

they have trouble predicting the direction of the conditioned effects
- many instances where contional stimuli elicit responses similar to those of the drug

Question 16

explain Ramsay and Woods view of conditioned drug effects

Answer 16

• problems with other theories comes from the fact they misunderstand pavlovian conditioning
• the unconditional stimuli is the disruption of neural functioning produced by the drug, and the unconditional response are the neurally mediated compensatory reactions to the US, which the experimenter may or may not record

Question 17

explain the Crowell and colleagues study in terms fo Ramsay and Woods view of conditioned drug tolerance

Answer 17

US was the hypothermia directly produced by alcohol exposure
- compensatory changes that counteract the reductions in body temp where the unconditional response

Question 18

why does Ramsay and Woods view of conditioned drug effects allow us to better predict the conditional response?

Answer 18

Once we determine the US and UR, its easy to predict the CR’s direction - CR is always similar to the UR