Motivational State-Dependent Renewal of Operant Responding under Food and Water Deprivation States

Renewal and reinstatement are two different ways in which operant responding may recover following extinction. These and other forms of recovery following extinction have been described as relapse phenomena and demonstrate the context-specific nature of extinction learning. Most studies of relapse phenomena have utilized distinct exteroceptive stimuli as context (e.g., auditory, visual, and/or olfactory stimuli). However, there is growing literature on the role of interoceptive stimuli (e.g., deprivation and drug states) in the recovery of extinguished responding. Recent studies have demonstrated that events that function as motivating operations (MOs) may contribute to relapse following extinction both by a) eliciting interoceptive conditions that serve as a discriminative context for relapse (i.e., the discriminative function) and b) altering the evocative efficacy of discriminative stimuli associated with the reinforcer that originally established responding (e.g., the motivational function). The purpose of the current study was to further examine the extent to which the discriminative and motivational functions of MOs contribute to relapse following extinction. One group of mice was deprived of food for 24 h and the other was deprived of water for 24 h during the acquisition of an operant response. Following this, each group received extinction sessions under the other MO condition. Both groups then received renewal and reinstatement tests under both MO conditions. More renewal and reinstatement were observed in the motivational states in which acquisition of responding occurred. The implications of these results are considered in the context of state-dependent learning.

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Spurlock, Emily Danielle

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lewon, Matthew P

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hayes, Linda J
• Ghezzi, Patrick M
• Hunter, Kenneth

• Deprivation
• Mice
• Motivating Operations
• Reinstatement
• Renewal
• State-Dependent Learning

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11714/7812

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/7812