Dextromethorphan, or DXM, a common active ingredient found in many over-the-counter cough suppressant cold medicines, is used as a recreational drug and entheogen for its dissociative effects. It has almost no psychoactive effects at medically recommended doses. Dextromethorphan has powerful dissociative properties when administered in doses well above those considered therapeutic for cough suppression. Recreational use of DXM is sometimes referred to in slang form as "robo-tripping", whose prefix derives from the Robitussin brand name, or "Triple Cs", which derives from the Coricidin brand. However, this brand presents a danger when used at recreational doses due to the presence of chlorpheniramine.
An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire, sexual pleasure, or sexual behavior. Substances range from a variety of plants, spices, foods, and synthetic chemicals. Therefore, they can be classified by their chemical properties. Natural aphrodisiacs like alcohol are further classified into plant-based and non-plant-based substances. Unnatural aphrodisiacs like Ecstasy are classified as those that are manufactured to imitate a natural substance. Aphrodisiacs can also be classified by their type of effects. Aphrodisiacs that contain hallucinogenic properties like Bufo toad have psychological effects on a person that can increase sexual desire and sexual pleasure. Aphrodisiacs that contain smooth muscle relaxing properties like yohimbine have physiological effects on a person that can affect hormone levels and increase blood flow.
Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. It is also a procedure that is used to bring about such learning.
A placebo is an inert substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets, inert injections, sham surgery, and other procedures.
Classical conditioning refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus. It also refers to the learning process that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus.
A nocebo effect is said to occur when negative expectations of the patient regarding a treatment cause the treatment to have a more negative effect than it otherwise would have. For example, when a patient anticipates a side effect of a medication, they can suffer that effect even if the "medication" is actually an inert substance. The complementary concept, the placebo effect, is said to occur when positive expectations improve an outcome. Both placebo and nocebo effects are presumably psychogenic, but they can induce measurable changes in the body. One article that reviewed 31 studies on nocebo effects reported a wide range of symptoms that could manifest as nocebo effects including nausea, stomach pains, itching, bloating, depression, sleep problems, loss of appetite, sexual dysfunction and severe hypotension.
Motivational salience is a cognitive process and a form of attention that motivates or propels an individual's behavior towards or away from a particular object, perceived event or outcome. Motivational salience regulates the intensity of behaviors that facilitate the attainment of a particular goal, the amount of time and energy that an individual is willing to expend to attain a particular goal, and the amount of risk that an individual is willing to accept while working to attain a particular goal.
Rat Park was a series of studies into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s and published between 1978 and 1981 by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
Substance dependence, also known as drug dependence, is an adaptive state that develops from repeated drug administration, and which results in withdrawal upon cessation of drug use. A drug addiction, a distinct concept from substance dependence, is defined as compulsive, out-of-control drug use, despite negative consequences. An addictive drug is a drug which is both rewarding and reinforcing. ΔFosB, a gene transcription factor, is now known to be a critical component and common factor in the development of virtually all forms of behavioral and drug addictions, but not dependence.
Conditioned taste aversion occurs when an animal associates the taste of a certain food with symptoms caused by a toxic, spoiled, or poisonous substance. Generally, taste aversion is developed after ingestion of food that causes nausea, sickness, or vomiting. The ability to develop a taste aversion is considered an adaptive trait or survival mechanism that trains the body to avoid poisonous substances before they can cause harm. The association reduces the probability of consuming the same substance in the future, thus avoiding further poisoning. It is an example of operant conditioning, not Pavlovian.
State-dependent memory or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed. The term is often used to describe memory retrieval while in states of consciousness produced by psychoactive drugs – most commonly, alcohol, but has implications for mood or non-substance induced states of consciousness as well.
Brain stimulation reward (BSR) is a pleasurable phenomenon elicited via direct stimulation of specific brain regions, originally discovered by James Olds and Peter Milner. BSR can serve as a robust operant reinforcer. Targeted stimulation activates the reward system circuitry and establishes response habits similar to those established by natural rewards, such as food and sex. Experiments on BSR soon demonstrated that stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus, along with other regions of the brain associated with natural reward, was both rewarding as well as motivation-inducing. Electrical brain stimulation and intracranial drug injections produce robust reward sensation due to a relatively direct activation of the reward circuitry. This activation is considered to be more direct than rewards produced by natural stimuli, as those signals generally travel through the more indirect peripheral nerves. BSR has been found in all vertebrates tested, including humans, and it has provided a useful tool for understanding how natural rewards are processed by specific brain regions and circuits, as well the neurotransmission associated with the reward system.
SB-277,011A is a drug which acts as a potent and selective dopamine D3 receptor antagonist, which is around 80-100x selective for D3 over D2, and lacks any partial agonist activity.
Psychological dependence is a state that involves emotional–motivational withdrawal symptoms, e.g. anxiety and anhedonia, upon cessation of drug use or certain behaviours. It develops through frequent exposure to a psychoactive substance or behaviour, though behavioural dependence is less talked about. The specific mechanism involves a neuronal counter-adaption, which could be mediated through changes in neurotransmittor activity or altered receptor expression. Withdrawal symptoms can be attenuated by environmental enrichment and physical activity. Psychological dependence is not to be confused with physical dependence, which induces physical withdrawal symptoms upon discontinuation of use. However they are not mutually exclusive.
Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a form of Pavlovian conditioning used to measure the motivational effects of objects or experiences. By measuring the amount of time an animal spends in an area that has been associated with a stimulus, researchers can infer the animal's liking for the stimulus. This paradigm can also be used to measure conditioned place aversion with an identical procedure involving aversive stimuli instead. Both procedures usually involve mice or rats as subjects. This procedure can be used to measure extinction and reinstatement of the conditioned stimulus. Certain drugs are used in this paradigm to measure their reinforcing properties. Two different methods are used to choose the compartments to be conditioned, and these are biased vs. unbiased. The biased method allows the animal to explore the apparatus, and the compartment they least prefer is the one that the drug is administered in and the one they most prefer is the one where the vehicle is injected. This method allows the animal to choose the compartment they get the drug and vehicle in. In comparison, the unbiased method does not allow the animal to choose what compartment they get the drug and vehicle in and instead the researcher chooses the compartments.
Self-administration is, in its medical sense, the process of a subject administering a pharmacological substance to themself. A clinical example of this is the subcutaneous "self-injection" of insulin by a diabetic patient.
Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. Despite the involvement of a number of psychosocial factors, a biological process—one which is induced by repeated exposure to an addictive stimulus—is the core pathology that drives the development and maintenance of an addiction. The two properties that characterize all addictive stimuli are that they are reinforcing and intrinsically rewarding.
BP-897 is a drug used in scientific research which acts as a moderately selective dopamine D3 receptor partial agonist. It has mainly been used in the study of treatments for cocaine addiction.
Addiction is a state characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences. The process of developing an addiction occurs through instrumental learning, which is otherwise known as operant conditioning.
Pavlovian-instrumental transfer (PIT) is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a conditioned stimulus that has been associated with rewarding or aversive stimuli via classical conditioning alters motivational salience and operant behavior. Two distinct forms of Pavlovian-instrumental transfer have been identified in humans and other animals – specific PIT and general PIT – with unique neural substrates mediating each type. In relation to rewarding stimuli, specific PIT occurs when a CS is associated with a specific rewarding stimulus through classical conditioning and subsequent exposure to the CS enhances an operant response that is directed toward the same reward with which it was paired. General PIT occurs when a CS is paired with one reward and it enhances an operant response that is directed toward a different rewarding stimulus.
