Reconsidering the concept of behavioral mechanisms of drug action

A half-century of research in behavioral pharmacology leaves little doubt that behavior-environment contingencies can determine the behavioral effects of drugs. Unfortunately, a coherent behavior-analytic framework within which to characterize the myriad ways in which contingencies interact with drugs, and to predict effects of a given drug under a given set of conditions, still has not developed. Some behavioral pharmacologists have suggested the concept of behavioral mechanisms of drug action as a foundation for such a framework. The notion of behavioral mechanisms, however, does not seem to have been fully embraced by behavioral pharmacologists. It is suggested here that one reason for this is that the concept itself has not been sufficiently clarified (i.e., stimulus control over use of the phrase is not sufficiently precise). Furthermore, early behavioral pharmacologists may not have possessed an adequate set of analytic tools to develop a viable framework based upon behavior mechanisms. In the first part of this paper, the notion of behavioral mechanisms of drug action is explored, and the sort of data that might provide evidence of a behavioral mechanism is considered. In the second part, it is suggested that the increased availability of quantitative models in behavior analysis may help provide the tools needed for elucidating behavioral mechanisms of drug action. Some examples of how these models have been, and could be used are provided.