Applying laboratory research: Drug anticipation and the treatment of drug addiction.

Basic research concerning drug tolerance and withdrawal may inform clinical practice, and vice versa. Three areas that integrate the work of the laboratory and the clinic are discussed: (a) drug overdose, (b) cue exposure treatment of addiction, and (c) pharmacological treatment of withdrawal symptoms. The areas are related in that they indicate the contribution of drug-paired cues to the effects of addictive drugs and the role of Pavlovian conditioning of drug effects in drug tolerance and withdrawal symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intra-Administration Associations and Withdrawal Symptoms: Morphine-Elicited Morphine Withdrawal.

On the basis of a conditioning analysis, some drug "withdrawal symptoms" are conditional responses elicited by stimuli paired with the drug effect. Prior demonstrations of conditional elicitation of withdrawal symptoms evaluated the role of environmental cues; however, pharmacological cues also typically signal a drug effect. Within each administration, early drug onset cues (DOCs) may become associated with the later, larger drug effect (intra-administration associations). This experiment evaluated the contribution of intra-administration associations to withdrawal symptoms. The results indicated that (a) 5 mg/kg morphine elicited behavioral and thermic withdrawal symptoms in rats previously injected on a number of occasions with 50 mg/kg morphine and that (b) DOC-elicited withdrawal symptoms are not a sensitized response to the opiate but rather an associative phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does habituation play a role in drug habit? Comment on McSweeney, Murphy, and Kowal (2005).

Comment on the article, "Regulation of Drug Taking by Sensitization and Habituation," by McSweeney, et al (see record 2005-10634-001). McSweeney, Murphy, and Kowal offer the intriguing suggestion that the basic behavioral processes of habituation and sensitization play an important role in drug taking, specifically, repeated drug taking. The suggestion is noteworthy because, if correct, it, as the authors point out, could lead to new approaches to prevention and treatment, approaches that involve the use of environmental variables that are relatively accessible. I think their exposition raises several issues. A number of these questions are related to the phenomenon of drug tolerance, an outcome that can be understood as either an instance of or deriving from the process of habituation. The presentation also contains passages in which the logic is not fully clear. Another issue I have with the article is the overall logic approach on the basis of features of drug addiction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regulation of drug intake.

Regulation of drug intake refers to the maintenance of relatively constant levels of drug over a specified time period. An understanding of regulation of drug intake may be critical in determining how drugs function as reinforcers and how their reinforcing effects may be modified. However, little is known about regulation of drug intake, and the mechanisms underlying it are poorly understood. Three mechanisms that have proposed to account for findings of regulation of drug intake were discussed to determine their relevance of drug-reinforced responding. These mechanisms include aversive effects, direct effects, and satiation. Although a greater role for satiation was supported in this review, drugs may vary on the degree to which they can produce satiation and whether satiation acts in concert with either the aversive effects or the direct effects of drugs is unclear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioning history and the reinforcing effects of drugs: Comment on Alessi, Roll, Reilly, and Johanson (2002).

Drug reinforcement plays a central role in drug abuse. Drugs of abuse are unconditioned reinforcers whose functional effects are mediated through neuropharmacological mechanisms. The role of conditioning has received attention, but the focus has been on associations between environmental cues and unconditioned drug stimuli. Recent studies by C.-E. Johanson, A. Mattox, and C. R. Schuster (see record 1996-10361-001) and S. M. Alessi, J. M. Roll, M. P. Reilly, and C.-E. Johanson (see record 2002-12827-002) have demonstrated that drugs can also acquire functional control over human behavior through conditioning processes. Given the potent effects that conditioned reinforcers (e.g., money) can have on human behavior, studies by Johanson et al. and Alessi et al. should engender further examination of conditioning processes and drug reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

McSweeney, Murphy, and Kowal: Reply to Branch (2005), Rowlett (2005), and Siegel (2005).

The authors thank M. N. Branch (see record 2005-10634-002), J. K. Rowlett (see record 2005-10634-003), and S. Siegel (see record 2005-10634-004) for their comments. Branch's commentary contains many misconceptions. The authors try to clarify these issues. They agree with Rowlett that converging approaches to understanding drug consumption will ultimately yield the best results. The authors also agree that measuring reinforcer effectiveness is difficult. New techniques such as probe preference tests make this task more manageable. The authors thank Siegel for describing recent changes in his model. Nevertheless, the authors believe that their discussion of his compensatory response model helps to clarify their own model. They also believe Siegel defines homeostasis somewhat differently than they do; thus, their positions may be more similar than they appear. The details of their model remain to be worked out, but the authors believe that it provides a testable and parsimonious model for the regulation of drug consumption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of AIDS and alcohol/drug abuse: Psychosocial research.

Reviews the book, AIDS and alcohol/drug abuse: Psychosocial research, edited by Dennis G. Fisher (1991). Substance use, primarily intravenous drug use, accounts for an increasingly large proportion of new acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) cases. As such, psychosocial research in the addictions plays an important role in evaluating strategies for reaching out to and educating those at risk for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and in developing effective prevention and risk-reduction strategies for this special population. This book is thus a timely contribution to the field. The seven brief chapters in this volume cover an extremely broad range of topics related to the relationship between AIDS and substance abuse. On the whole, however, the chapters in this volume are strikingly uneven in their sophistication and degree of relevance to the general psychologist working in addictive behaviors. Whereas some of the chapters are too brief to fully explore the implications of some of the issues they raise, the brevity of others is appropriate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Childhood maltreatment, parental alcohol/drug-related problems, and global parental dysfunction.

How do different types of child maltreatment relate to parental drug/alcohol problems? A series of confirmatory factor models were tested with cross-sectional data from a community sample (N = 477). Findings suggest that childhood maltreatment and parental drug problems are two distinct conditions that co-occur about 30% of the time; they are not completely independent, nor are they always related to each other. When they co-occur, greater problems characterized by global parental dysfunction are suggested. Furthermore, several reported experiences differed by gender: Family abuse and parent drug problems were more strongly related for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Satiety threshold regulates maintained self-administration: Comment of Lynch and Carroll (2001).

In this commentary the authors argue that the satiety threshold is the only mechanism that is sufficient and necessary to explain the regulation of maintained self-administration. the other mechanisms have been proposed mainly because of 2 sources of confusion surrounding the self-administration paradigm: the failure to distinguish between separate phases of a self-administrations session and the assumption that positive reinforcement underlies drug self-administration. The authors of this commentary emphasize that the direct effects and aversion mechanisms have been proven to be untenable for the reasons reviewed by W. J. Lynch and M. E. Carroll (see record 2001-06653-001) and that the "ascending limb" of the dose-response curve is an experimental artifact. These ideas have persisted only to salvage a role for positive reinforcement in drug self-administration. The authors conclude that reinforcement is not relevant to the regulation of maintained self-administration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Renewal of drug seeking by contextual cues after prolonged extinction in rats.

Contextual stimuli associated with drug exposure can modulate various effects of drugs, but little is known about their role in relapse to drug seeking. Using a renewal procedure, the authors report that drug-associated contextual stimuli play a critical role in relapse to drug-seeking previously maintained by a heroin-cocaine mixture (speedball). Rats were trained to self-administer speedball, after which drug-reinforced behavior was extinguished over 20 days in the self-administration context or in a different context. On the test day, rats exposed to the drug-associated context, after extinction in a different context, reliably renewed drug seeking. The authors suggest that the renewal procedure can be used to study mechanisms underlying relapse to drug seeking elicited by drug-associated contextual stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Drug use and misuse.

Reviews the book, Drug use and misuse by Stephen A. Maisto, Mark Galizio, and Gerard J. Connors (see record 1990-98923-000). Maisto, Galizio, and Connors have written a comprehensive, 16-chapter volume that discusses the use and abuse of historically important drugs as well as the most recently developed psychoactive drugs. Most of the chapters contain thorough and up-to-date discussions of drug issues and recent research concerning drug effects. The presentation of information is orderly and logical. Discussions later in the book build from information presented earlier, and students should have no trouble in following the text and using it effectively. On occasion, there are recent developments that probably deserve expanded coverage beyond that provided by the text. However, this is a well-produced book that should prove useful to students and benefit introductory courses in substance use and abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Establishment of a diazepam preference in human volunteers following a differential-conditioning history of placebo versus diazepam choice.

This study examined whether preference for a drug (diazepam or placebo) could be switched using conditioning procedures. During the first 4 sessions of Phase 1, 6 participants received 5mg of diazepam or placebo under double-blind conditions. During the remaining 5 sessions of Phase 1, participants selected the drug they wished to receive. The first 4 sessions of Phase 2 were a replication of Phase 1, except that following ingestion of the drug, participants completed a computer task for which they could earn money. Payment for the computer task was lowest following ingestion of the drug they preferred in Phase 1 and highest following the drug they had avoided. Preference was reassessed during the last 5 sessions of Phase 2. Five of the participants preferred placebo in Phase 1 but diazepam in Phase 2. Subjective responses to the two drugs also changed across the 2 phases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Huba, Wingard, and Bentler.

Reports an error in the article "Beginning Adolescent Drug Use and Peer and Adult Interaction Patterns" by G. J. Huba, Joseph A. Wingard, and P. M. Bentler (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1979, 47, 265-276). On page 269 all the coefficients in Table 3 should be positive (with the indicated numerical value). On page 270-271 the loading in Table 4 for the variable "are liked by parents" on Dimension II' should read .00 instead of -.60. Interpretation of the results does not change. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1979-28564-001). Interaction patterns among drug users, their peers, and significant adults have been implicated as causal factors of later drug abuse. Data were collected from 1,634 adolescents about their current use of 13 substances and about their interactions with peers and significant adults. Five canonical dimensions were necessary to explain the significant covariation in each of 2 comparable samples. The replicated pattern of rotated canonical loadings indicated that users of various classes of substances associated with other individuals who used the same substances. Other indicators of interaction patterns did not suggest that the drug users had friends who were particularly deviant. Adolescent drug users do not appear to form subcultures delineated from nonuser subcultures along interaction dimensions other than that of drug use. The results are consistent with an interactionist-socialization viewpoint of the development of drug use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other learning process in substance abuse: Comment on Alessi, Roll, Reilly, and Johanson (2002).

The results presented in the article by S. M. Alessi, J. M. Roll, M. P. Reilly, and C.-E. Johanson (see record 2002-12827-002) suggest that the reinforcing impact of diazepam can change as a function of the participant's experience with the drug. The data fit nicely with a long tradition in learning theory that has shown the effects of reinforcers can depend crucially on what the organism has been able to learn about them. Often, that learning reflects an associative process like the one involved in Pavlovian conditioning. The hypothesis that preference for diazepam increased in the Alessi et al. study because the drug was associated with money would benefit from additional experiments that include control conditions isolating the role of the Pavlovian drug-money contingency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blame, shame, and contamination: The impact of mental illness and drug dependence stigma on family members.

Family members of relatives with mental illness or drug dependence or both report that they are frequently harmed by public stigma. No population-based survey, however, has assessed how members of the general public actually view family members. Hence, the authors examined ways that family role and psychiatric disorder influence family stigma. A national sample (N = 968) was recruited for this study. A vignette design describing a person with a health condition and a family member was used. Family stigma related to mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, is not highly endorsed. Family stigma related to drug dependence, however, is worse than for other health conditions, with family members being blamed for both the onset and offset of a relative's disorder and likely to be socially shunned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of A primer of drug action.

Reviews the book, A primer of drug action (4th ed.) by Robert M. Julien (see record 1985-97568-000). This volume, which is the fourth edition of this text to appear in the last decade, provides an excellent introduction to drugs that affect the central nervous system. The author begins with basic pharmacology--how drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated--and then discusses specific pharmacological agents by grouping them into five major categories. This book can be understood easily by those with no background in the biological sciences. Students who are deficient in such knowledge can pick up what they need to know from the appendices, which are as thoughtfully prepared as the remainder of the text. Another nice feature of this book is that its content is not overly Americanized and thus it is unlikely to alienate Canadian students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Access conditions are crucial: Comment on Lynch and Carroll (2001).

W. J. Lynch and M. E. Carroll (see record 2001-06653-001) sought to identify factors that control drug intake, that is, factors that decrease the avidity of drug seeking and drug taking while drug is obviously available. The review provides updated information about factors that regulate drug intake and a heuristic framework for future studies of regulatory processes throughout the natural history of a substance abuse disorder. In particular, the review suggests a productive framework for studies of transitions from early drug use to later abusive use. Forceful identification of factors that control the avidity of drug seeking and drug taking under the controlled conditions of the laboratory may encourage development of therapeutic interventions that capitalize on these factors for successful treatment of human drug abuse. Extending the analysis of regulation of intake include factors that can be manipulated to reorganize behavior may improve the design of interventions to treat drug abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Potential Role of Drug Onset Cues in Drug Dependence and Withdrawal: Reply to Bardo (2004), Bossert and Shaham (2004), Bouton (2004), and Stewart (2004).

In responding to commentaries (M. Bardo, see record 2004-10475-002; J. Bossert and Y. Shaham, see record 2004-10475-003; M. Bouton, see record 2004-10475-004; J. Stewart, see record 2004-10475-005) on their original article (see record 2004-10475-001), the authors agree that the basic mechanisms underlying intra-administration associations may be extensible to a much wider range of phenomena, including both other examinations of conditioned drug effects (e.g., conditioned place preference) and human psychological disorders. The authors also address the concerns of a number of the commenting authors regarding discrepancies in the literature concerning the effects of drug priming in both human and animal studies of reinstatement of drug self-administration. Finally, the authors accept and endorse the calls by several of these commenting authors for further studies required to generate additional support for their model of conditioned drug effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Getting back to basics: Commentary on McSweeney, Murphy, and Kowal (2005).

The review article "Regulation of Drug Taking by Sensitization and Habituation" by F. K. McSweeney, E. S. Murphy, and B. P. Kowal (see record 2005-10634-001) introduces 2 basic principles of behavior, sensitization and habituation, into a comprehensive model for studying drug intake and drug addiction. A key assumption of the model is that the reinforcing effectiveness of drugs sensitize and/or habituate; however, issues with the measurement of reinforcing effectiveness should be carefully considered. In addition, a multidisciplinary approach might broaden this model and increase its power. Other approaches include, but are not limited to, pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling and in vivo measures of brain activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)