OFC and Addiction in Animal Studies
(For a review see Porrino & Lyons, 2000.) Stimulating the OFC in laboratory animals results in drug self- administration. In animal studies the OFC is hypothesized to not only be associated with the response to reward, but also to respond and adjust animal behavior when the rewarding properties of the reinforcement change - as well as learning the association between stimulus and reward. The damage to the OFC results in deficits in reversal of stimulus reinforcement in which an animal perseverates on a behavior and fails to extinguish a behavior. This perseveration and inability to extinguish a behavior can be related to drug administration in substance abuse and substance dependence where individuals compulsively self-administer a drug even with drastic decrease of reinforcing effects of that drug and tolerance to the pleasurable effects and in the presence of adverse consequences of drug use. Rats who are reintroduced to an environment in which they used cocaine experience activation of the OFC. In addition, in rats, repeated alcohol use causes degeneration of the OFC.
Read more about this topic: Orbitofrontal Cortex
Famous quotes containing the words addiction, animal and/or studies:
“All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if he had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material ...”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)