Chapter Two & Three - Behavioural Analysis of Drug Effects & Drug Adaptation Flashcards

1
Q

John B. Watson

A
  • Thought to be the behaviouralism founder.
  • Argued that to be a science, psychology should focus on behaviours and measurable phenomena.
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2
Q

Three key events that established field of neuropharmacology?

A
  1. The growing success of therapeutic and commerical use of antipsychotic medications.
  2. Peter Dews demonstration of the Skinner Box to study drug effects.
  3. The application of physiology to understand behaviour from a mechanistic standpoint.
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3
Q

Define:

Chlorpromazine

A
  • Developed in 1952, among the first antipsychotic medicatiosn to be designed and effective as a treatment for psychosis.
  • Enabled many psychiatric hospitals to downsize or close.
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4
Q

Peter Dews Pigeon Studies?

A
  • Studies the effects of drugs on pigeons pecking for grain reinforcement in a skinner box.
  • Demonstrated that the same dose of the drug causes different effect on behaviour dependent on reinforcement design.
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5
Q

Joseph Brady?

A
  • Thought to be the father of behaviooural neuroscience.
  • First person to utilize behavioural techniques and physiological techniques to correlate the two, such as tracking heart rate whilst undergoing a drug’s effects.
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6
Q

Define:

Experimental Drug Research

A
  • Allows to test hypothees and create causal claims by exploring relationships between independent and dependent variables.
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7
Q

Define:

Experimental Control

A

What happens when the drug is administered vs. when it is not administered.

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8
Q

Define:

Placebo Control

A
  • Active drug vs. inert substance.
  • For consistency in experimental design.
  • Allows for assessment of placebo effect.
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9
Q

Define:

Three Group Design:

A
  1. Experimental drug group.
  2. Placebo group.
  3. An established drug group [really just how effective the drug is].
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10
Q

Define:

Placebo Effect

A

This is the effect seen that the expectancy of receicing a drug largely influences and is responsible for the consequential effect.

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11
Q

Define:

Experimenter Bias

A

This is when experimenters allow their own expectations to change and effect the interpretation of the observations.

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12
Q

Limitation to non-experimental drug research?

A

It only allows us to see what is correlated but canot tell us if one event causes the other [or vice versa].

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13
Q

Common tasks & Effective proxies:

A
  • Conditioned place preference task: drug reward.
  • Locomotor activity/open field: common measure of anxiety.
  • Self administration: drug reward.
  • Two bottle preference/choice task: which substance is more reinforcing/rewarding.
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14
Q

Define:

Subjective Effects

A
  • What the drug makes you feel.
  • Not a reliable metrc but often does inspire/guide more research.
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15
Q

Define:

Rating Scales

A
  • Provide a standarized measurement.
  • ie. likert scales.
  • ie. visual analog scale [VAS]
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16
Q

Define:

Perception

A
  • Researchers look at acuity of certain sense in response to drugs.
  • Often done with vision and hearing.
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17
Q

Define:

Motor Performance

A

Reaction time tasks.

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18
Q

Define:

Attention

A

Mackworth Clock Test.

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19
Q

Memory?

A
  • Many kinds of memory can be impacted by drugs.
  • LTM is commonly assessed with free recall or cued recall tasks.
  • STM is commonly assess via N-Back tasts.
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20
Q

What is the purpose of test of response inhibition?

A

This is to understand if a drug interferes with someone’s ability to inhibit an action.

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21
Q

Define:

Tolerance

A
  • Decreased effectiveness of a drug over time.
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22
Q

Define:

Acute Tolerance

A

This is the tolerance that develops after a single administration of a drug, such as alcohol.

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23
Q

Mechanisms of Tolerance?

A
  • Pharmacokinetic Tolerance.
  • Pharmacodynamic Tolerance.
  • Behavioural Tolerance.
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24
Q

Define:

Pharmacokinetic Tolerance

A
  • Increased rate or ability of the body to metabolize a drug.
  • Results in less molecules reaching their target receptors and therefore lowers the effect.
  • Basically, the more it is metabolizes, the less molecules that go to the place they need to act on.
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25
Q

Define:

Pharmacodynamic Tolerance

A
  • The adjustment the body makes to compensant for the effects of a drug.
  • Go to the specific cells and act on what they need to.
26
Q

Define:

Behavioural Tolerance

A
  • Tolerance that is developed over time through experience with the drug.
  • It is considered a ‘learned’ event.
27
Q

Define:

Withdrawal

A
  • The body’s reaction to the loss of a drug.
  • Symptoms occur.
  • It can be halted almost instantly by giving the drug to the individual [this point is a requirement in order for it to be considered a withdrawal symptom].
28
Q

Define:

Dependance

A
  • Varies depending on context.
  • Often looked at as one of two things:
    1. The presense of withdrawal symptoms when the drug is withheld.
    2. When a person NEEDS to take a drug.
  • Dependence does NOT = addiction.
29
Q

Define:

Opponent Process Theory

A
  • Solomon and Corbit 1974.
  • Abused drugs stimulate a process that creates (a) a euphoric state, or (b) compensatory dysphoric state.
  • During single administration, process A dominates first awnd is followed by B. Process A ends faster than B which in turn creates the highs and lows of drug use.
  • Basically: Idea is that there are opposing processes in your body, the euphoric process gives you a subjective [euphoric] effect, you peak and then come back down, the response or opposing effect is you body trying to compensate.
30
Q

Define:

Sensitization

A
  • The increase in behavioural effects following repeated administration of a drug [inverse of tolerance].
  • Sensitization can occur even following a single dose.
31
Q

Factors that Influence Sensitization?

A
  • Clear impact on the motivational/reward system in our brain.
  • Hyperactivity in DA systems in the brain are responsible for sensitization.
  • Thought to be strictly driven by the nucleau accumbens.
32
Q

Define:

Nocebo Effect

A
  • When negative expectations cause negative effects/outcomes.
33
Q

Define:

Novel Environments

A
  • Drugs administered in new settings has been shown to increase locomotion and induce faster sensitization in rodents.
34
Q

Brain Imaging?

A
  • Allows researchers to see relative changes in the brain in response to drug use/abuse.
    1. Structural Imaging Techniques:
  • MRI
    2. Functional Imaging Techniques:
  • FMRI
  • PET
35
Q

MRI?

A
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
  • A bunch of water in our body, basically putting people into a machine, polarized all the molecules, moves them, the machine measures how long it takes for the molecules to shift back into place.
36
Q

FMRI

A
  • There is increased oxygen in brain regions that are more active.
  • Measures the relative amount of oxygenated to deoxygenated blood.
  • BOLD is the measurement used.
  • More active = more oxygenated blood, less active = ratio is smaller.
37
Q

PET

A
  • Measures the concentration of a radioactive tracer inserted to the bloodstream, roughly 30 minutes before the test.
  • It is a direct measure of brain metabolism bu an indirect measure of brain function.
38
Q

FMRI & PET

A
  • Both measure metabolic activity that is then correlated with neuronal activity.
  • Work on the assumption that th ebrain regions that are active require more blood flow and oxygen.
  • Brain is always active, making these difficult.
  • It is hard to correlate function to what is actually going onn with these scans.
39
Q

What was the Fillmore and Vogel-Sprott Experiment?

A
  • 3 groups of participants were given a cup of coffee before being tested on a psychomotor peformance task.
  • Group 1 = told it would inhance, group 2 = slow, group 3 = told nothing.
  • Were all actually given decafe, and each group’s performance matched what they were told.
  • Placebo effect.
40
Q

Define:

Balanced Placebo Design

A
  • Developed in mid 1970s.
  • Gold standard for research with humans in which participants’ expectations could influence the results.
  • Four groups:
    1. Placebo, not aware.
    2. Placebo, is aware.
    3. Drug, aware.
    4. Drug, not aware.
41
Q

Define:

Nonexperimental Research

A
  • Looks for a correlational relationship between two measured events.
42
Q

Define:

Uncondition Behaviour

A
  • Spontaneou Motor Activity [SMA].
43
Q

Define:

Analgesia

A
  • The ability of a drug to block pain.
44
Q

Define:

Paw Lick Latency Test

A
  • Rats are placed on a metal surface that is heated.
  • First they do not react, but after a few seconds raise one of their hind paws to their mouth as though they were licking it.
45
Q

Define:

Classical Conditioning

A
  • A learning process that occurs when two stimulu are repeatedly paired.
  • Uncoditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response.
46
Q

Define:

Operant Conditioning

A
  • A method of learning that involves rewards and punishment to modify behavior.
  • ie. Skinner Box.
47
Q

Define:

Avoidance-Escape Task

A
  • Occurence of a behaviour that terminiates the aversive stimulus, avoidning it.
  • ie. two compartments, one shocks, rat learnes to go to the other after being shocked in the first.
48
Q

Drugs as Disciminative Stimuli

A
  • Dissociation / state-dependent learning.
  • Events experienced in a drugged state might not have the ability to control behaviour when in a nondrugged state, and vice versa.
49
Q

Define:

Abuse Liability

A
  • The reinforcing property of a drug that is an indiction of its potential for abuse.
50
Q

Define:

Drug Discrimination Paradigm

A
  • It has been demonstrated that most drugs that act on the CNS have discriminative stimulus properties.
51
Q

Define:

Active vs. Inactive Drugs

A
  • Active: drug reinforcer.
  • Inactive: nondrug or saline.
52
Q

Define:

Progressive Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement

A
  • The subject is required to work for a drug infusion on an FR schedule that becomes increasinly more demaning.
53
Q

What is Drug State Discrimination?

A
  • Usually, the individual undergoes multiple instances of exposure to a drug and a placebo, either through a pill or injection. In each trial, they are informed they are receiving either condition A or B, then exposed to unidentified instances of each condition and asked to identify whether it is A or B.
54
Q

Define:

Absolute Threshold

A
  • Refers to the lowest value of a stimulus that can be detected by a sense organ. It is a measure of the absolute sensititivty of the sense organ.
55
Q

Define:

Difference Threshold

A
  • Measures of the ability of a sense organ to detect a change in level or locus of stimulation.
  • If threshold increase = intensity of stimulus increased. A lowering = sense has become more sensitive.
56
Q

Simple vs. Complex Reaction Time Tests?

A
  • Simple: the participant must make a response after a noise/light is activated.
  • Complex: there are several possible responses and several different signals associated with each.
  • They are both used to measure motor performance.
57
Q

Define:

Mithridatism

A
  • An effect named after King Mithridates, now known as tolerance.
58
Q

Define:

Homeostasis

A
  • The tendency of the human body to seek balance, equilibrium, and stability.
  • Tolerance is a result of this.
59
Q

Define:

Cross Dependence

A
  • Withdrawal can be halted almost instantly by giving the drug that has been stopped, or by giving another drug of the same family.
60
Q

Define:

Cross Sensitization

A
  • Hyper-reponsiveness to one psychostimulant after pre-exposure to a different psychostimulant.
  • ie. morphine = increased behavioural actionwith cocaine.
61
Q

What is the Nigrostriatal Dopamine Pathway?

A
  • A component of the brain’s motivational circuitry.
  • Hyperactivty here may be responsible for the sensitization of sterotypic behaviors that emerge with excessive. long-term drug administration.
62
Q

Define:

Expectation Mechanism

A
  • A top-down pain relieving pathway from the cortex to a pain control center in the blower brain that is capable of blocking pain.