Article Option

Name:______Joshua Bonfiglio_______ Date: _____4/22/09__________

Article: Siegel (2005). Drug tolerance, drug addiction, and drug anticipation.

Questions:
1. Explain conditional stimulus, unconditional stimulus, unconditional responses and conditional
responses during drug administration.

Conditional stimulus is the cues accompanying the primary drug effect. Unconditional stimulus
is the direct effect of the drug. Unconditional responses are prior to any learning responses that
compensate for the drug-induced disturbances. Conditional responses are pairings of the predrug
conditional stimuli and pharmacological unconditional stimuli, drug-compensatory response.

2. How does Pavlovian conditioning explain drug tolerance and drug withdrawal symptoms?

Drug tolerance is resist to the drug effects after long exposure. For example a college student
may have a greater tolerance to a beer-flavored beverage than a fruity flavored beverage
containing the same amount of alcohol. Drug withdrawal occurs when the cues for receiving the
drug are present, but the drug is not received. The anticipation of the drug causes effects that
compensate for the lack of the drugs presence.

3. What are exteroceptive cues and interoceptive cues?

Exteroceptive cues are any effects that are external and public to which everyone can witness.
Interoceptive cues are effects that are internal and private to which only the drug user can
experience.

4. What does the author suggest to make the typical cue-exposure treatments more effective?

Treatments would be more effective if it incorporates extinction of drug-onset cues and self-
administration cues, as well as exteroceptive cues. The patient should be exposed to small
amounts of the addictive substance.