Redução de danos e análise do comportamento

Internação de adictos em lugares fechados e redução de danos. 

Era uma aula de análise experimental do comportamento sobre ressurgência (recaída). Ressurgência é quando um comportamento anteriormente gratificado deixa de ser fortalecido e um comportamento anterior na história do indivíduo se recupera (o segundo mais gratificante). Ele disse que quando o contexto de tratamento é diferente do contexto de vida onde acontece os comportamentos indesejados (seja uso abusivo de drogas ou outros comportamentos). O contexto fechado fortalece comportamentos incompatíveis com a recaída. Mas quando a pessoa sai do lugar fechado esses comportamentos desejados podem se enfraquecer e os comportamentos antigos se recuperam. O que favorece isso é estar num ambiente aberto nada gratificante, pouco gratificante, ser punido, a demora para ser gratificado e o estresse. Acredito que também vale para internação psiquiátrica. Isso tudo descrito em linguagem experimental de laboratório com animais e com humanos. Já sobre a redução de danos os experimentos de laboratório mostram que uma dose pequena da droga faz com que comportamentos de recaída não se recuperem.

Resurgence of alcohol seeking produced by discontinuing non-drug reinforcement as an animal model of drug relapse 

Christopher A. Podlesnik, Corina Jimenez-Gomez and Timothy A. Shahan 

Findings from basic behavioral research suggest that simply discontinuing reinforcement for a recently reinforced operant response can cause the recurrence (i.e. resurgence) of a different previously reinforced response. The present experiment examined resurgence as an animal model of drug relapse. Initially, rats pressed levers to self-administer alcohol during baseline conditions. Next, alcohol self-administration was discontinued and non-drug reinforcers (food pellets) were presented contingent on an alternative response (chain pulling). Finally, when the non-drug reinforcer was discontinued, alcohol seeking recurred even though alcohol was still unavailable for lever pressing. These results suggest that simply discontinuing non-drug reinforcement for a behavior may be sufficient to produce relapse to drug seeking. The resurgence procedure could provide a method to examine environmental, pharmacological, and neurobiological factors that lead to relapse following the loss of a non-drug source of reinforcement. Behavioural Pharmacology 17:369–374
c 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Loss of Alternative Non-Drug Reinforcement Induces Relapse of Cocaine-Seeking in Rats: Role of Dopamine D1 Receptors 

Stacey L Quick1,2, Adam D Pyszczynski1 , Kelli A Colston1 and Timothy A Shahan*,1 1 Department of Psychology, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA; 2 Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA 

Animal models of relapse to drug seeking have focused primarily on relapse induced by exposure to drugs, drug-associated cues or contexts, and foot-shock stress. However, relapse in human drug abusers is often precipitated by loss of alternative non-drug reinforcement. The present experiment used a novel ‘resurgence’ paradigm to examine relapse to cocaine seeking of rats as a result of loss of an alternative source of non-drug reinforcement. Rats were first trained to press a lever for intravenous infusions of cocaine. Next, cocaine deliveries were omitted and food pellets were provided for an alternative nose-poke response. Once cocaine seeking was reduced to low levels, food pellets for the alternative response were also omitted. Cocaine seeking increased with the loss of the alternative non-drug reinforcer (ie, resurgence occurred) despite continued extinction conditions. The increase in cocaine seeking did not occur in another group of rats injected with SCH 23390 before the loss of the alternative reinforcer. These results suggest that removal of an alternative source of reinforcement may induce relapse of cocaine seeking and that the dopamine D1 receptor may have a role in this effect. Neuropsychopharmacology (2011) 36, 1015–1020; doi:10.1038/npp.2010.239; published online 12 January 2011 Keywords: relapse; cocaine; dopamine; resurgence; alternative reinforcement