TY - JOUR
T1 - Renewal, resurgence, and alternative reinforcement context
AU - Sweeney, Mary M.
AU - Shahan, Timothy A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by NIH grant R01HD064576. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
PY - 2015/7/1
Y1 - 2015/7/1
N2 - Resurgence, relapse induced by the removal of alternative reinforcement, and renewal, relapse induced by a change in contextual stimuli, are typically studied separately in operant conditioning paradigms. In analogous treatments of operant problem behavior, aspects of both relapse phenomena can operate simultaneously. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine a novel method for studying resurgence and renewal in the same experimental preparation. An alternative source of reinforcement was available during extinction for one group of rats (a typical resurgence preparation). Another group experienced an operant renewal preparation in which the extinction context was distinguished via olfactory and visual stimuli. A third group experienced alternative reinforcement delivery in the new context, a novel combination of typical resurgence and renewal preparations. Removal of alternative reinforcement and/or a change in context induced relapse relative to an extinction-only control group. When alternative reinforcement was delivered in a novel context, the alternative response was less persistent relative to when extinction of the alternative response took place in the context in which it was trained. This methodology might be used to illustrate shared (or distinct) mechanisms of resurgence and renewal, and to determine how delivering alternative reinforcement in another context may affect persistence and relapse.
AB - Resurgence, relapse induced by the removal of alternative reinforcement, and renewal, relapse induced by a change in contextual stimuli, are typically studied separately in operant conditioning paradigms. In analogous treatments of operant problem behavior, aspects of both relapse phenomena can operate simultaneously. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine a novel method for studying resurgence and renewal in the same experimental preparation. An alternative source of reinforcement was available during extinction for one group of rats (a typical resurgence preparation). Another group experienced an operant renewal preparation in which the extinction context was distinguished via olfactory and visual stimuli. A third group experienced alternative reinforcement delivery in the new context, a novel combination of typical resurgence and renewal preparations. Removal of alternative reinforcement and/or a change in context induced relapse relative to an extinction-only control group. When alternative reinforcement was delivered in a novel context, the alternative response was less persistent relative to when extinction of the alternative response took place in the context in which it was trained. This methodology might be used to illustrate shared (or distinct) mechanisms of resurgence and renewal, and to determine how delivering alternative reinforcement in another context may affect persistence and relapse.
KW - Lever press
KW - Operant conditioning
KW - Operant renewal
KW - Relapse
KW - Renewal
KW - Resurgence
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U2 - 10.1016/j.beproc.2015.04.015
DO - 10.1016/j.beproc.2015.04.015
M3 - Article
C2 - 25936876
AN - SCOPUS:84929657160
VL - 116
SP - 43
EP - 49
JO - Behavioural Processes
JF - Behavioural Processes
SN - 0376-6357
ER -