PSYCHOLOGY MASTER'S THESIS ABSTRACT

Nida Poosuthasee

MA-Research
December 2001

A Test of the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction: Resistance to Extinction

    Robinson and Berridge (1993) have proposed an Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addition that provides plausible explanations for features of addiction that other theories cannot.  Research has demonstrated that drug-conditioned stimuli are very potent in eliciting craving and precipitating relapse.  Attempts to ‘extinguish’ conditioned responses to such stimuli should result in a progressive decline in drug craving.  However, interestingly, some responses to such stimuli are somewhat more resistant to extinction than others.  The present study utilized the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm to establish differing levels of associative strength between a place and amphetamine, and utilized the extinction paradigm to assess resistance to extinction of the CPP.  It was hypothesized that an increase in associative strength would be accompanied by an increase in resistance to extinction.  It was also predicted that beyond a certain number of conditioning trials, resistance to extinction would increase greatly.  The data show that this hypothesis was supported.

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