![Image](https://www.worldsupporter.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/bundle/wereldbol_summaries_joho_single_boek_1_150x190px_0.png?itok=PgQm9J5z)
How does Pavlovian conditioning work in the context of addiction?
It has been known for decades that addicts experience symptoms of drug withdrawal when they encounter situations or environments that they associate with their drug use. Just the sight of drug paraphernalia or speaking about drugs to other people can elucidate these symptoms. This is due to Pavlovian (or classical) conditioning. In Pavlovian conditioning, there are unconditional and conditional stimuli, as well as unconditional and conditional responses. In the context of drug use, the unconditional stimulus is the pharmacological effect of the drug. The drug induces a compensatory response in the body. For example, alcohol has a temperature-lowering effect, so after ingestion, the body raises its temperature to compensate. The cues or environment accompanying the administration of the drug are the conditional stimuli, which need to be associated with the effects of the drug multiple times before being effective in elucidating withdrawal symptoms. Eventually, these cues (the conditional stimuli) will bring about conditional compensatory responses. These conditional compensatory responses also counteract the drug effect, even when no drug was administered.
What factors influence the strength of an addict’s tolerance?
An addict’s tolerance to a certain drug increases when, due to repeated use, the drug’s effect on their body decreases. The more that the conditional compensatory response strengthens, and thus the drug’s effects are more highly counteracted, the higher someone’s tolerance will be. Situational specificity of tolerance is a concept that illustrates the effects of the specific environment (conditional stimuli) on drug tolerance levels. In experiments designed to demonstrate situational specificity of tolerance, people are administered drugs in the exact same environment multiple times in the tolerance-development phase. After, in a tolerance-test session, the participants are split up into two groups. One group is administered drugs in the same environment as before, and one group’s drug administration environment changes. Those in the unchanged environment will show heightened tolerance to the drug due to the conditional stimuli (the environmental cues). However, those in the changed environment will show lowered tolerance, and the effect of the drug on them is stronger than it was at the end of the tolerance-development phase. For example, college students have been shown to display less alcohol tolerance when they consume a familiar alcoholic beverage than when they consume an unfamiliar, peppermint-flavored blue beverage with the same alcohol content. This situational specificity of tolerance has also been shown to apply to potentially lethal doses of drugs.
What causes symptoms of withdrawal?
Withdrawal symptoms are caused by conditional compensatory responses when there is no drug provided after the conditional stimuli. In other words, if a drug is not administered after the typical stimuli that precede drug use, withdrawal symptoms begin. The feeling of withdrawal is simply the compensatory response reaching its full expression because there is no drug effect to counteract it. It is important to note that the anticipation of drug use is what causes withdrawal, not the drug itself. In addition to drug compensatory responses, these withdrawal symptoms can also manifest as neurochemical responses which are felt as cravings.
What are the different types of drug-related cues?
There are two broad categories of cues when it comes to the Pavlovian conditioning of drugs: exteroceptive and interoceptive cues. Exteroceptive cues, which are more commonly used in experiments, are those that can be seen, heard, or smelled by both the experimenter and the subject. Interoceptive clues are those that only the subject is aware of which become associated with the administration of a drug. Within interoceptive cues, there are self-administration cues and drug-onset cues. Self-administration cues refer to the ritual that one participates in while administering themselves the drug, such as injecting themselves with a drug intravenously. This kind of cue will also function as a conditional stimulus, bringing about a conditional compensatory response. It has been shown that tolerance is higher after one goes through their typical self-administration procedure than when they are administered the same amount of the drug by an experimenter. Drug-onset cues describe the immediate effect of a drug before its full effect comes through. Drug-onset cues, such as the warm feeling that alcohol tends to immediately elicit, consistently precede the stronger effects of the drug. In rats, it has been shown that administering a small dose of a drug elicits symptoms of withdrawal when the full and expected dose is not then provided. The rats had associated the drug-onset cues with the eventual full drug effect.
What are the implications of these findings for addiction treatment?
Behavioral therapies for drug addiction can utilize Pavlovian conditioning. In these therapies, predrug conditional cues can be extinguished by presenting the addict with the conditional cue and denying them access to the drug. It would be helpful to incorporate interoceptive drug cues, including memories, emotions, and cognitions into the pool of conditional predrug cues. Accurate insight into the possible predrug cues for the addict, both exteroceptive and interoceptive, will allow for the most effective drug addiction treatment.
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
![Image](https://www.worldsupporter.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/bundle/wereldbol_summaries_joho_single_boek_1_150x190px_0.png?itok=PgQm9J5z)
Summaries per article with Clinical Psychology at Leiden University 21/22
Summaries per article with Clinical Psychology at Leiden University 21/22
Study Guide with article summaries for Clinical Psychology at Leiden University - 2021/2022
Article summaries with Clinical Psychology at Leiden University
Table of content
- Article summary of The Mental Status Exam Through Video Clips of Simulated Psychiatric Patients: an Online Educational Resource by Martin et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder in refugees resettling in high-income countries: systematic review and meta-analysis by Henkelmann et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of Stress resilience during the coronavirus pandemic by Vinkers et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of Mental illness is a result of misery, yet we still stigmatise it by Bentall - Chapter
- Article summary of Why Joker’s depiction of mental illness is dangerously misinformed by Driscoll & Husain - Chapter
- Article summary of Bipolar Disorder by Grande et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of The levels problem in psychopathology by Eronen - Chapter
- Article summary of On the Origins of Schizophrenia by Kahn - Chapter
- Article summary of Alice in Wonderland syndrome: A systematic review by Blom - Chapter
- Article summary of The network approach to psychopathology: a review of the literature 2008-2018 and an agenda for future research by Robinaugh et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of Drug Tolerance, Drug Addiction, and Drug Anticipation by Siegel - Chapter
- Article summary of The Heroin Overdose Mystery by Siegel - Chapter
- Article summary of Treatment of anxiety disorders by Bandelow et al. - Chapter
- Article summary of Cognitive-behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety by Borza - Chapter
- Articlesummaries with prescribed articles for Clinical Psychology 2020/2021
- 1 of 2159
- next ›
Online access to all summaries, study notes en practice exams
- Check out: Register with JoHo WorldSupporter: starting page (EN)
- Check out: Aanmelden bij JoHo WorldSupporter - startpagina (NL)
Using and finding summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
- Use the menu above every page to go to one of the main starting pages
- Starting pages: for some fields of study and some university curricula editors have created (start) magazines where customised selections of summaries are put together to smoothen navigation. When you have found a magazine of your likings, add that page to your favorites so you can easily go to that starting point directly from your profile during future visits. Below you will find some start magazines per field of study
- Use the topics and taxonomy terms
- The topics and taxonomy of the study and working fields gives you insight in the amount of summaries that are tagged by authors on specific subjects. This type of navigation can help find summaries that you could have missed when just using the search tools. Tags are organised per field of study and per study institution. Note: not all content is tagged thoroughly, so when this approach doesn't give the results you were looking for, please check the search tool as back up
- Check or follow your (study) organizations:
- by checking or using your study organizations you are likely to discover all relevant study materials.
- this option is only available trough partner organizations
- Check or follow authors or other WorldSupporters
- by following individual users, authors you are likely to discover more relevant study materials.
- Use the Search tools
- 'Quick & Easy'- not very elegant but the fastest way to find a specific summary of a book or study assistance with a specific course or subject.
- The search tool is also available at the bottom of most pages
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
- Check out: Why and how to add a WorldSupporter contributions
- JoHo members: JoHo WorldSupporter members can share content directly and have access to all content: Join JoHo and become a JoHo member
- Non-members: When you are not a member you do not have full access, but if you want to share your own content with others you can fill out the contact form
Quicklinks to fields of study (main tags and taxonomy terms)
Field of study
- Communication & Media sciences
- Corporate & Organizational Sciences
- Cultural Studies & Humanities
- Economy & Economical sciences
- Education & Pedagogic Sciences
- Health & Medical Sciences
- IT & Exact sciences
- Law & Justice
- Nature & Environmental Sciences
- Psychology & Behavioral Sciences
- Public Administration & Social Sciences
- Science & Research
- Technical Sciences
Add new contribution