Nondrug reinforcers contingent on alternative behavior or abstinence increase resistance to extinction and reinstatement of ethanol‐maintained behavior

Abstract

The effects of delivering nondrug alternative reinforcement on resistance to extinction and reinstatement of rats' ethanol‐maintained lever pressing were evaluated in two experiments. In both, rats self‐administered ethanol by lever pressing in a two‐component multiple schedule during baseline. In the Rich component, alternative food reinforcement was made available for performing an alternative response (Experiment 1) or according to a differential‐reinforcement‐of‐other‐behavior schedule for lever pressing (Experiment 2). In the Lean component, only ethanol was available. Moreover, the frequency of alternative reinforcement was manipulated across conditions in Experiment 1. Following baseline, lever pressing was extinguished in both components by suspending ethanol reinforcement, and alternative food reinforcers were discontinued. Finally, to test for reinstatement, ethanol reinforcers were delivered independently of lever pressing in both components. In both experiments, proportion‐of‐baseline response rates were higher during extinction and reinstatement testing in the Rich component than in the Lean component (although differentiation was not observed at the lowest frequency of alternative reinforcement in Experiment 1). Thus, alternative nondrug reinforcers increased resistance to extinction and reinstatement of rats' ethanol‐maintained lever pressing, even when those reinforcers were delivered contingently on an alternative response or on abstinence from lever pressing.

Resurgence of ethanol seeking following voluntary abstinence produced by nondrug differential reinforcement of other behavior

“…Providing DRO reinforcement produced complete or near‐complete suppression of ethanol self‐administration for all rats. The DRO 5‐s schedule that was arranged initially for each rat was based on outcomes from a related study reported by Craig and Shahan (2022). These authors evaluated the effects of concurrently reinforcing rats' lever pressing and abstinence from lever pressing with ethanol and food reinforcement, respectively, on the resistance to extinction and reinstatement of lever pressing.…”

Resistance to change, of behavior and of theory

“…Another core argument of behavioral momentum theory is that resistance to change is governed by the Pavlovian stimulus-reinforcer relation in a conditioning situation and that it is not affected by response-reinforcer relations. Empirical support for this argument is common (Nevin et al, 1990; see also Craig & Shahan, 2022;Mace et al, 2010;Podlesnik et al, 2012) across laboratories and species including pigeons, rats, fish, and people (see, e.g., Igaki & Sakagami, 2004;Mace et al, 1990;Podlesnik & Shahan, 2009;Shahan & Burke, 2004;Thrailkill et al, 2018). It is not, however, ubiquitous.…”

“…When an operant response produces the same rate of reinforcement in different discriminative‐stimulus contexts and additional response‐independent reinforcers are introduced into one of the contexts, two outcomes often are observed (Craig & Shahan, 2022; Grimes & Shull, 2001; Nevin et al, 1990; Shahan & Burke, 2004). First, baseline response rates tend to be lower in the context with added response‐independent reinforcers than in the context without the additional reinforcers (presumably because the response–reinforcer relation was disrupted by providing some portion of reinforcers gratis).…”