PSY 3142 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Dopamine Receptor D2, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, Incentive Salience

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3142
• Professor: Philip Wall

Document Summary

Several theories of the role of da: release the da in the acc produced feelings pleasure (euphoria/high). Cocaine users that were depleted of catecholamines experienced no decrease in euphoria. Other studies also indicate that the hedonic aspects are relatively una ected by da manipulations: da is important for the incentive salience quality of rewards. Incentive sensitization as a drug addiction develops, the user experiences an increase n wanting the drug even tho these is no change in drug liking. Developed from studies with monkeys in which da ring is recorded when rewards are given, when rewards are associated with a conditioned stimulus (cs), as when the expected reward does not occur. Da may encode pleasure during drug use; mediate incentive salience when te animal is evaluating incentives; and act as a reward-prediction error signal when the animal is expecting a reward. Neuro-adaptations: repeated exposure to a drug results in long-term changes in the brain that lead to a motivational transition.