Use Of Vocal Communication During Their Adolescent Development

Unit 3.3.1 – How communication with children and young people differs across different age ranges and stages of development

Progressive ratio schedules have been used to study the effects of different drugs or doses. The progressive ratio schedule is defined as increasing the ratio requirement (the number of responses needed to acquire an injection) following each reinforcement until there is no longer a response. The breaking point is the final ratio and is used to evaluate the efficacy of the reinforcer. Different motivational variables change the value of the breaking point. Increasing the dose of cocaine increases the value of the breaking point. On the other hand, pre-treating animals with spiperone or SCH23390 will decrease the breaking point. Therefore, it can be implied that both D1 and D2 receptors are needed to reinforce the effects of cocaine (Hubner & Moreton, 1991).

Does this prove that addiction is not a conscious decision, but rather a biological disposition that can be affected by the environment? Since addiction varies between species and some love drugs where others hate them, the results in testing on these rats were it heightened their impulsive behavior, which was directly caused by the availability of the substance, lack of stimulation, and the environmental change (Ferland, Zeeb, Yu, Kaur, Taves, Winstanley

McLellan. David Nutt is a professor at Edmond J. Safra Fundation. Besides, David Nutt is the Director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Science. Thomas M. McLellan is the Chief Executive Officer and cofounder of the Treatment Research Institute. In addition, Thomas M. McLellan is a substance abuse researcher. Moreover, McLellan served as Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Can Neuroscience Improve Addiction Treatment and Policies?” is a research that explains that the brain is the primary objective of psychoactive drugs. In the paper “Can Neuroscience Improve Addiction Treatment and Policies?” the authors state, “drugs are self-administered because they make people feel different – usually better”. They explain that the majority of the modifications related with drug consume are fast changes. The alterations produced by drugs are faster than most changes created by natural stimulus. Numerous activities that produce amusement feelings release neurotransmitters such as dopamine. The consume of drugs manufacture quickly and higher levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine. An important fact about the ingest of drugs according to the authors is that “this rapid release of reward-inducing experience is a significant part of the transition from exploratory, to regular, to compulsive use (addiction).”

It has become common wisdom to dismiss the Bruce Alexander work. However, Lauren Slater at the chapter Rat Park gives a quit unique and unexpected thought towards drug addicts. My whole life I heard it said that when more individuals get exposed to a drug the more addictive they become. (Slater) A few of physiologist have disclaimed and ignore Bruce Alexander’s experiment regarding drug addiction. The experiment was conducted with Mice, they were put first in a dirty and nasty cage, it turns out that the Mice on the dirty cage became extremely addicted. The Mice on another cage had a spectacular environment and the Mice refused to take the drugs. The concluded that marbles environments did not cause addiction instead it did

One of the main problems in the treatment of addiction is the high rate of relapse to drug use. Consequently, two major aims of preclinical research are to elucidate the behavioral, environmental, and neural mechanisms underlying drug relapse and to discover medications that will prevent relapses. The majority of studies on these topics involve the reinstatement model. The reinstatement model is currently used in many laboratories to investigate mechanisms underlying relapse to substance seeking. In the self-administration version, by pressing a lever, animals would get a drug infusion. Then, turning off the drugs, the animals still pressed the lever, associating it with the drugs.

Another animal model of abuse liability that has provided much information on the behavioral effects of cannabinoids is the conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure. This procedure is based on the principles of classical conditioning and provides an indication of drug-related reward/aversion effects in animals. The rewarding/aversive stimulus properties of a drug assessed under this procedure refers to the appetitive nature of the stimulus as opposed to the ability of a drug to increase the probability of a given behavior (i.e. reinforcing effects). Although methodological details differ among laboratories, CPP procedures typically begin by allowing animals to freely explore two distinct environmental contexts within a chamber, which differ

Drug seeking behaviors comes from medical patients who abuse prescription drugs. They tend to visit physician and exert escalated pressure to obtain prescription drugs. Other drugs such as cocaine may disrupt the brain function through three way alike snorting, smoking, and injecting cocaine is how it inter the blood stream and all area of the brain. However, its euphoric effects are mediated in certain areas. For instance, prescription drugs are oral alike marijuana, Acetaminophen, Adderall, Xanax, Codeine, Oxycodone, Ibuprofen 800 these prescription reaches or become associated with the reward pathway. Meanwhile that is why each prescribed drug is provided with a certain dosages, possible drug interactions, side effects, and contraindications

The [C]raclopride plays a role in determining the extracellular dopamine in the synapse. The theory of addiction is the idea that addictive drugs have a particular nature of releasing dopamine, while psychoactive non-addictive drugs do not. Alcohol and Cannabis have been demonstrated to lack certain qualities associated with inducing the release of dopamine in comparison to [C]cocaine. Figure 2 demonstrates an increase of dopamine levels in the ventral striatum which is produced by amphetamine and alcohol administration. In regards to [C]cocaine, there is a reduction in the radiotracer as a result of decreased expression of postsynaptic dopamine receptors. Alcohol dependent individuals demonstrated to have a decreased number of radiotracers, and cannabis detected almost no changes in the dopamine receptor availability. The article itself suggested that addiction is a complex mechanism that involves external factors such as environment, along with variation in drug reaction from person to person. It was suggested he it was unlikely that a single neurotransmitter could explain every aspect associated with addiction. The role of dopamine is concluded to have a central role in addiction to ‘stimulant drugs; which directly affect the dopamine system, but less so, in reference to mediating the addiction of other drugs – such as

This chapter focuses on addiction through the use of rats. During the 1960’s and 1970’s scientists were attempting to understand how animals found some drugs to be “irresistible” ultimately to the point of addiction. It is believed that the brain produces its own natural opiates. When a person takes another form of these addictive substances, the brain stops producing its own supply of natural opiates. Thus, when drug users stop taking a certain drug, they experience withdrawal symptoms and the need to take the drug. The main scientist that is focused on in this chapter is Bruce Alexander. Alexander initially worked under Harry Harlow and his experiments. Alexander then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada during the time of the Vietnam

Learning is one important task that has a lot of complication in itself. Learning somehow starts with observation for most of us human as well as some animal species. In a recent study (Vallentin et al., Science, 2016), courtship learning process in zebra finches is examined through their development.

The article, High Impulsivity Predicts the Switch to Compulsive Cocaine-Talking, sought to determine whether impulsivity and novelty-seeking (which are behavioral markers of addictive drugs) place individuals in the vulnerability of compulsive seeking of the drug. The researchers used laboratory rats to test the vulnerability. Researchers found that high reactivity to novelty predicted the likelihood of rats seeking cocaine self-administration. However, high impulsivity seemed to predict the development of addiction like behavior in the laboratory rats. The results obtained by researchers has changed the perspective from the impulsivity aspect of drug use towards the compulsivity factor during the initial stages of addiction development. Interestingly, the compulsive factor can be generated through neural physiology (i.e. neural mechanisms or diminished function of cortical function).

During conditioning experiments involving food rewards, pigeons are often food deprived to the point where they are at

It can be understood from the experiment that suggests, conditioning plays a role in the tolerance development to the sedative effects of the drug, midazolam. Even though there was equal tolerance for both the drug groups before the test for context specificity, tolerance showed specificity towards the drug associated context. The drug treatment didn’t seem to hinder discrimination learning in the situation of the experiment. There was no evidence found that indicated a compensatory response within the drug-tolerant animals given vehicle injections in the drug-associated context. The

Foraging behavior was studied in Medium ground finches living on Daphne Major. In 1976 there were 1400 birds living on the island. The same year, the island received 122 mm of rain in the wet season. The next year the island had a drought and only received 24 in of rain. The year after the island received 128 mm of rain.