Exaggerated Acquisition and Resistance to Extinction of Avoidance Behavior in Treated Heroin-Dependent Men

Sheynin, Jony; Moustafa, Ahmed A.; Beck, Kevin D.; Servatius, Richard J.; Casbolt, Peter; Haber, Paul; Elsayed, Mahmoud; Hogarth, Lee; Myers, Catherine E.

doi:10.4088/jcp.14m09284

Cited by 30 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Even if it were possible, such a manipulation would introduce new confounds in the form of withdrawal symptoms. Given this reality, many other recent studies of cognition and brain function in patients undergoing methadone maintenance treatment have used the same design of comparing patients vs. healthy (never-addicted) controls (e.g., 11, 42, 43) – although a few studies have compared methadone-maintenance patients against individuals with opiate addiction not undergoing such treatment, in addition to comparing both patient groups against never-addicted controls (e.g., 44). A viable alternative to studies of already-addicted humans would be animal studies, where drug exposure can be randomized and controlled, to decouple the effects of long-term addiction vs. acute drug effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, many other recent studies on drug addiction have also compared addicted patients to control groups with significantly more years of education (e.g., 11, 43, 45, 46, 47), and some studies have even suggested an explicit link between low educational attainment and drug addiction (e.g., 48, 49, 50). At least one prior large-scale longitudinal study has specifically assessed non-completion of grade 12 (secondary school) in Australia, and shown that polydrug- or alcohol-using adolescents were less likely to complete school than non-drug users (51).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Learning and generalization from reward and punishment in opioid addiction

Myers

Rego

Haber

et al. 2017

Behavioural Brain Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study adapts a widely-used acquired equivalence paradigm to investigate how opioid-addicted individuals learn from positive and negative feedback, and how they generalize this learning. The opioid-addicted group consisted of 33 participants with a history of heroin dependency currently in a methadone maintenance program; the control group consisted of 32 healthy participants without a history of drug addiction. All participants performed a novel variant of the acquired equivalence task, where they learned to map some stimuli to correct outcomes in order to obtain reward, and to map other stimuli to correct outcomes in order to avoid punishment; some stimuli were implicitly “equivalent” in the sense of being paired with the same outcome. On the initial training phase, both groups performed similarly on learning to obtain reward, but as memory load grew, the control group outperformed the addicted group on learning to avoid punishment. On a subsequent testing phase, the addicted and control groups performed similarly on retention trials involving previously-trained stimulus-outcome pairs, as well as on generalization trials to assess acquired equivalence. Since prior work with acquired equivalence tasks has associated stimulus-outcome learning with the nigrostriatal dopamine system, and generalization with the hippocampal region, the current results are consistent with basal ganglia dysfunction in the opioid-addicted patients. Further, a selective deficit in learning from punishment could contribute to processes by which addicted individuals continue to pursue drug use even at the cost of negative consequences such as loss of income and the opportunity to engage in other life activities.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning and generalization from reward and punishment in opioid addiction

Myers

Rego

Haber

et al. 2017

Behavioural Brain Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To our knowledge, this represents the first time that an interaction with gender has been observed in a behavioral study assessing avoidance in those with PTSS. This, together with a recent study that found gender differences in avoidance in opioid addicts (Sheynin et al, 2016), emphasize the importance of studying gender in mental disorders, and that the course and expression of avoidance may differ in men and women, which of course could have important implications for optimizing treatment by patient gender.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Second, while the spaceship task was validated in young adults, and later tested in opioid-addicted patients( Sheynin et al, 2014a; Sheynin et al, 2014b; Sheynin et al, 2016), the current work is the first to report performance on this task in participants with PTSS. In addition, PTSS status was assigned based on PCL scores, representing symptom self-assessment, rather than a result of clinical diagnostic status.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The spaceship avoidance task was a modification of that previously described (Sheynin et al, 2014a; Sheynin et al, 2014b; Sheynin, et al, 2016);an executable version of the software is available for replication and additional study on the Open Source Framework (OSF) at www.osf.io/p78fr. The software was programmed in SuperCard version 3.7.1 (Solutions Etcetera, Pollock Pines, CA, USA) and presented on a Macintosh iMac computer.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Sheynin

Shind

Radell

et al. 2017

Stress

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While avoidance is a core symptom of PTSD, little is known about whether individuals with PTSD show a general cognitive bias to acquire and express avoidance, in situations not related to trauma or fear. Here, we used a computer-based task to examine operant acquisition and extinction of avoidance in participants with and without severe self -reported PTSD symptoms. A total of 119 participants (77 male, 42 female; 74 veteran, 45 civilian) with symptoms (PTSS; n=63) or with few/no symptoms (noPTSS; n=56) performed a task, in which they controlled a spaceship and could shoot a target to gain points or hide in “safe areas” to escape or avoid on-screen aversive events. Results show that participants with PTSS exhibited more avoidance across trials than no PTSS participants, particularly due to more avoidance behavior in PTSS females compared to noPTSS females. Avoidance behavior decreased across extinction trials but interactions with PTSS and gender fell short of significance. Overall, PTSD symptoms were associated with propensity to acquire and express avoidance behavior, in both civilians and veterans, and even in a cognitive task that does not explicitly involve trauma or fear. This effect was more pronounced in females, highlighting the role of gender differences in PTSD symptomatology. Importantly, this study also demonstrates the potential of an objective assessment of avoidance behavior, which could be used to supplement the common but limited self-report tools.

show abstract

Role of preexisting inhibitory control deficits vs. drug use history in mediating insensitivity to aversive consequences in a rat model of polysubstance use

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rationale The nature and predictors of insensitivity to aversive consequences of heroin + cocaine polysubstance use are not well characterized. Objectives Translational methods incorporating a tightly controlled animal model of drug self-administration and measures of inhibitory control and avoidance behavior might be helpful for clarifying this issue. Methods The key approach for distinguishing potential contributions of pre-existing inhibitory control deficits vs. drug use history in meditating insensitivity to aversive consequences was comparison of two rat strains: Wistar (WIS/Crl), an outbred strain, and the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR/NCrl), an inbred strain shown previously to exhibit heightened cocaine and heroin self-administration and poor inhibitory control relative to WIS/Crl. Results In separate tasks, SHR/NCrl displayed greater impulsive action and compulsive-like behavior than WIS/Crl prior to drug exposure. Under two different schedules of drug delivery, SHR/NCrl self-administered more cocaine than WIS/Crl, but self-administered a similar amount of heroin + cocaine as WIS/Crl. When half the session cycles were punished by random foot shock, SHR/NCrl initially were less sensitive to punishment than WIS/Crl when self-administering cocaine, but were similarly insensitive to punishment when self-administering heroin + cocaine. Based on correlation analyses, only trait impulsivity predicted avoidance capacity in rats self-administering cocaine and receiving yoked-saline. In contrast, only amount of drug use predicted avoidance capacity in rats self-administering heroin + cocaine. Additionally, baseline drug seeking and taking predicted punishment insensitivity in rats self-administering cocaine or heroin + cocaine. Conclusions Based on the findings revealed in this animal model, human laboratory research concerning the nature and predictors of insensitivity to aversive consequences in heroin and cocaine polysubstance vs. monosubstance users is warranted. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00213-022-06134-4.

show abstract

Exaggerated Acquisition and Resistance to Extinction of Avoidance Behavior in Treated Heroin-Dependent Men

Cited by 30 publications

References 81 publications

Learning and generalization from reward and punishment in opioid addiction

Learning and generalization from reward and punishment in opioid addiction

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Role of preexisting inhibitory control deficits vs. drug use history in mediating insensitivity to aversive consequences in a rat model of polysubstance use

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About