Reward Pathways and Drugs - Research Article from Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior

This encyclopedia article consists of approximately 3 pages of information about Reward Pathways and Drugs.

Reward Pathways and Drugs - Research Article from Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior

This encyclopedia article consists of approximately 3 pages of information about Reward Pathways and Drugs.
This section contains 870 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Reward Pathways and Drugs Encyclopedia Article

The observation that animals would work in order to receive electrical stimulation to discrete brain areas was first described by Olds and Milner (1954). In this paper, they stated, "It is clear that electrical stimulation in certain parts of the brain, particularly the septal area, produces acquisition and extinction curves which compare favorably with those produced by conventional primary reward." This phenomenon is usually referred to as brain-stimulation reward (BSR), intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS), or intracranial stimulation (ICS).

Most abused substances increase the rate of response (lever pressing) for rewarding ICS, and this has been interpreted as an increase in the reward value of the ICS. Because changes in rate of response could also be a function of the effects of the drug on motor performance, a number of methods have been developed that control for the confounding nonspecific effects of the drugs under...

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This section contains 870 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Reward Pathways and Drugs Encyclopedia Article
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Reward Pathways and Drugs from Macmillan. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.