Date of Completion

2025

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Neuroscience

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

James M. Stafford

Second Advisor

Eric A. Thrailkill

Keywords

Alcohol self-administration, noncontingent reinforcement, operant self-administration, mouse

Abstract

Reinstatement is the increase of an extinguished behavior that occurs when the reinforcing outcome or outcome-paired cues are reencountered. Previous findings with rats suggest that the delivery of noncontingent food reinforcers during extinction can diminish reinstatement. Given the importance of reinstatement to understanding relapse of drug self-administration, the present study extended these findings to drug rewards for the first time. Using alcohol as a reinforcer, we investigated whether noncontingent alcohol presentations during the extinction of alcohol-seeking behavior would influence the reinstatement of alcohol-seeking. Male and female mice were trained to lever press for alcohol (ethanol 20% vol/vol), then extinguished with either a conventional extinction protocol or given random noncontingent presentations of alcohol. Noncontingent alcohol deliveries during extinction resulted in fewer alcohol lever presses during the reinstatement test. Alcohol, or alcohol cues, during extinction may obstruct reinstatement triggered by subsequent exposures by forming a relationship with extinction learning to reduce the drug-seeking behavior.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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