Preventing relapse after incentivized choice treatment: A laboratory model.

Area of Science:

• Behavioral neuroscience
• Animal behavior research
• Operant conditioning

Background:

• Behavioral suppression is often achieved by incentivizing alternative behaviors, a strategy used in human contingency management.
• Understanding relapse is crucial for developing effective behavioral interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel laboratory paradigm, the incentivized choice paradigm, for studying operant behavior relapse.
• To investigate methods for preventing relapse after behavioral suppression.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments with rats utilized an incentivized choice paradigm where a target response (R1) was suppressed by reinforcing an alternative response (R2) with a larger reinforcer.
• Relapse to R1 was examined after R2 reinforcement was discontinued.
• Experiment 2 tested the efficacy of presenting non-contingent reinforcers in reducing relapse.

Main Results:

• Incentivizing an alternative behavior effectively suppressed the target operant response.
• Discontinuation of the alternative behavior's reinforcement led to immediate and robust relapse to the target response.
• Presenting either the target or alternative response reinforcer non-contingently significantly reduced relapse.

Conclusions:

• The incentivized choice paradigm provides a new model for studying relapse, distinct from extinction-based models.
• Non-contingent reinforcement during testing is a viable strategy to prevent relapse in this paradigm.
• Findings suggest potential therapeutic strategies for relapse prevention in contingency management treatments.