Pavlovian Conditioning And Overdose Summary

Pavlovian Conditioning’s Cause and Effect Relationship With Overdose

Adelphi University

Professor Denckla

Michelle Hennessy

Summary: Harm Reduction Journal Gerevich, Bacskai, Farkas, and Danics’ case report studied if Pavlovian conditioning can directly relate to death from overdose. The case followed a young that had been treated multiple times for an addiction to heroin. As a result for the multiple treatments studies have shown that drug overdose occurs most frequently when the patient accustomed to the drug gives up its use then after a while attempts to continue addictive behavior with the same dose before withdrawal. His daily dose had not differed even the fatal overdose, thus proving the conditioned tolerance failed to operate. This indicates that morphine concentrations measured in cases of drug related death do not differ substantially form those measured in cases where
Siegel researched and studied cases of overdose and examined rats injected with an opiate. He observed that Pavlovian conditioning contributes to tolerance when the user begins to make observations of the effects of the drug in the presence of cues that were previously paired with the drug. Two stimuli are present and one will presumably predict the other, this includes the drug. When the tolerance the chance for overdose increases as well. The unconditioned stimulus in Pavlov’s conditioning is the effect of the drug. This conditioning makes relapsing common because of the craving for unconditioned stimulus. It is necessary to allow extinction the cues that are presented with the drug in order for recovery. Overdose doesn’t necessarily have to come from the conditioning process but many experiments verify a higher risk if conditions are