Context and renewal of habits and goal-directed actions after extinction

Punishment resistance for cocaine is associated with inflexible habits in rats

Addiction is characterized by continued drug use despite negative consequences. In an animal model, a subset of rats continues to self-administer cocaine despite footshock consequences, showing punishment resistance. We sought to test the hypothesis that punishment resistance arises from failure to exert goal-directed control over habitual cocaine seeking. While habits are not inherently permanent or maladaptive, continued use of habits under conditions that should encourage goal-directed control makes them maladaptive and inflexible. We trained male and female Sprague Dawley rats on a seeking-taking chained schedule of cocaine self-administration. We then exposed them to four days of punishment testing in which footshock was delivered randomly on one-third of trials. Before and after punishment testing (four days pre-punishment and ≥ four days post-punishment), we assessed whether cocaine seeking was goal-directed or habitual using outcome devaluation via cocaine satiety. We found that punishment resistance was associated with continued use of habits, whereas punishment sensitivity was associated with increased goal-directed control. Although punishment resistance for cocaine was not predicted by habitual responding pre-punishment, it was associated with habitual responding post-punishment. In parallel studies of food self-administration, we similarly observed that punishment resistance was associated with habitual responding post-punishment but not pre-punishment in males, although it was associated with habitual responding both pre- and post-punishment in females, indicating that punishment resistance was predicted by habitual responding in food-seeking females. These findings indicate that punishment resistance is related to habits that have become inflexible and persist under conditions that should encourage a transition to goal-directed behavior.

The role of habit in maintaining binge/purge behaviors: An ecological momentary assessment study

OBJECTIVE

Individuals with eating disorders transdiagnostically engage in binge eating (BE) and/or purging, despite life-threatening consequences. Little is known about factors that contribute to the persistence of these behaviors. This study explored whether habitual control over binge/purge (B/P) spectrum behaviors contributes to symptom persistence and whether negative reinforcement via reductions in negative affect is less influential in maintaining B/P behaviors that are under habitual control and are persistent.

METHOD

Women with BE and/or purging (N = 81) completed self-report measures assessing habit strength of BE and purging. Then, they completed a 14-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol during which they completed measures of negative affect, BE, and purging multiple times per day.

RESULTS

Habitual control over purging was associated with a greater frequency of purging during the EMA period. However, habitual control over BE was not associated with the severity of loss of control eating or the frequency of BE episodes. Habitual control did not moderate temporal relations between negative affect and B/P behaviors during the EMA period. However, exploratory analyses revealed that individuals with a longer duration of BE and greater habitual control over BE showed a less pronounced reduction in negative affect following BE.

DISCUSSION

Overall, these findings suggest that purging may be maintained by habitual stimulus-response learning. In addition, they support the possibility that reduction in negative affect may play a less prominent role in maintaining BE that is habitual and persistent.

PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE

This study investigated whether habit contributes to the persistence of symptoms in women with binge/purge spectrum behaviors and whether negative reinforcement via reductions in negative affect is less influential in maintaining binge/purge behaviors that are under habitual control. The findings suggest that purging may be maintained through habit. This supports the potential utility of habit reversal interventions to decrease habitual purging.

Making and breaking habits: Revisiting the definitions and behavioral factors that influence habits in animals

Habits have garnered significant interest in studies of associative learning and maladaptive behavior. However, habit research has faced scrutiny and challenges related to the definitions and methods. Differences in the conceptualizations of habits between animal and human studies create difficulties for translational research. Here, we review the definitions and commonly used methods for studying habits in animals and humans and discuss potential alternative ways to assess habits, such as automaticity. To better understand habits, we then focus on the behavioral factors that have been shown to make or break habits in animals, as well as potential mechanisms underlying the influence of these factors. We discuss the evidence that habitual and goal-directed systems learn in parallel and that they seem to interact in competitive and cooperative manners. Finally, we draw parallels between habitual responding and compulsive drug seeking in animals to delineate the similarities and differences in these behaviors.

Habit and persistence

Voluntary behaviors (operants) can come in two varieties: Goal-directed actions, which are emitted based on the remembered value of the reinforcer, and habits, which are evoked by antecedent cues and performed without the reinforcer's value in active memory. The two are perhaps most clearly distinguished with the reinforcer-devaluation test: Goal-directed actions are suppressed when the reinforcer is separately devalued and responding is tested in extinction, and habitual behaviors are not. But what is the function of habit learning? Habits are often thought to be strong and unusually persistent. The present selective review examines this idea by asking whether habits identified by the reinforcer-devaluation test are more resistant to extinction, resistant to the effects of other contingency change, vulnerable to relapse, resistant to the weakening effects of context change, or permanently in place once they are learned. Surprisingly little evidence supports the idea that habits are permanent or more persistent. Habits are more context-specific than goal-directed actions are. Methods that make behavior persistent do not necessarily work by encouraging habit. The function of habit learning may not be to make a behavior strong or more persistent but to make it automatic and efficient in a particular context.

Stimulus control of habits: Evidence for both stimulus specificity and devaluation insensitivity in a dual-response task

Goal-directed and habitual actions are clearly defined by their associative relations. Whereas goal-directed control can be confirmed via tests of outcome devaluation and contingency-degradation sensitivity, a comparable criterion for positively detecting habits has not been established. To confirm habitual responding, a test of control by the stimulus-response association is required while also ruling out goal-directed control. Here we describe an approach to developing such a test in rats using two discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for two different responses that then earn the same outcome. Performance was insensitive to outcome devaluation and showed stimulus-response specificity, indicative of stimulus-controlled behavior. The reliance of stimulus-response associations was further supported by a lack of sensitivity during the single extinction test session used here. These results demonstrate that two concurrently trained responses can come under habitual control when they share a common outcome. By reducing the ability of one stimulus to signal its corresponding response-outcome association, we found evidence for goal-directed control that can be dissociated from habits. Overall, these experiments provide evidence that tests assessing specific stimulus-response associations can be used to investigate habits.

Resurgence of goal-directed actions and habits

This study investigated how goal-directed and habitual behaviors recover after extinction within the context of the resurgence effect, a form of relapse induced by the removal or worsening of alternative reinforcement. Rats were trained to press a target lever with one reinforcer (O1) for either minimal (4) or extended (16) sessions. An extinction test after the completion of O1 devaluation confirmed that minimal and extended training formed goal-directed and habitual behaviors, respectively. Then, pressing an alternative lever was reinforced with a second reinforcer (O2) while the target response was placed on extinction. When O2 was discontinued, the minimally trained target response resurged with goal-directed status as in the extinction test. However, the extinguished habitual behavior in the extensively trained rats did not recover as a habit but instead with goal-directed status, possibly due to the context specificity of habits or the introduction of a new response-reinforcer contingency. The critical finding that reinforcer devaluation consistently led to less resurgence regardless of the amount of acquisition training provides a clinical implication that coupling differential-reinforcement-of-alternative-behavior (DRA) treatments with the devaluation of the associated reinforcer of problematic behavior could effectively diminish its recurrence.

Adapting family-based treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa delivered in the home: A novel approach for improving access to care and generalizability of skill acquisition

BACKGROUND

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious mental illness associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Family-based treatment (FBT) is a well-established treatment for adolescent AN, yet it is underutilized in community settings and is unavailable to many families, particularly those from lower income and racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. Furthermore, some families do not respond optimally to FBT, possibly because of challenges translating skills acquired in office-based treatment settings to naturalistic settings. Home-based treatment could reduce barriers to access and enhance generalization of newly learned treatment skills. Home-based models demonstrate initial feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy for adolescent AN, however, FBT principles have yet to be applied as a stand-alone intervention in a home-based level of care. This paper describes the rationale for and process of adapting FBT principles/interventions to improve fit within a home-based model delivered in the context of community mental health, and discusses potential strengths and opportunities associated with this approach.

RESULTS

Adaptations were made through consultation with collaborating community agencies and were guided by the complex interventions framework. The primary modifications included: (1) altered dose; (2) multiple family meals; (3) additional support for meal preparation and supervision; (4) clinician attendance at medical appointments; (5) cultural adaptation; and (6) introduction of distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills.

CONCLUSIONS

Implementing FBT in the home may present one promising and novel approach to enhance engagement and treatment outcomes for adolescents with restrictive eating disorders, particularly those who are underserved, but evaluation of efficacy/effectiveness is needed.

Punishment resistance for cocaine is associated with inflexible habits in rats

Addiction is characterized by continued drug use despite negative consequences. In an animal model, a subset of rats continues to self-administer cocaine despite footshock consequences, showing punishment resistance. We sought to test the hypothesis that punishment resistance arises from failure to exert goal-directed control over habitual cocaine seeking. While habits are not inherently permanent or maladaptive, continued use of habits under conditions that should encourage goal-directed control makes them maladaptive and inflexible. We trained male and female Sprague Dawley rats on a seeking-taking chained schedule of cocaine self-administration (2 h/day). We then exposed them to 4 days of punishment testing, in which footshock (0.4 mA, 0.3 s) was delivered randomly on one-third of trials, immediately following completion of seeking and prior to extension of the taking lever. Before and after punishment testing (4 days pre-punishment and ≥4 days post-punishment), we assessed whether cocaine seeking was goal-directed or habitual using outcome devaluation via cocaine satiety. We found that punishment resistance was associated with continued use of habits, whereas punishment sensitivity was associated with increased goal-directed control. Although punishment resistance was not predicted by habitual responding pre-punishment, it was associated with habitual responding post-punishment. In parallel studies of food self-administration, we similarly observed that punishment resistance was associated with habitual responding post-punishment but not pre-punishment. These findings indicate that punishment resistance is related to habits that have become inflexible and persist under conditions that should encourage a transition to goal-directed behavior.

Taste aversion learning in the snail Cornu aspersum

The present study was conducted to provide evidence of conditioned taste aversion learning (CTA) in the snail Cornu aspersum, using quinidine as the aversive stimulus in a procedure of Pavlovian Conditioning of Tentacle Lowering. Subjects were split into two groups: paired and unpaired. During the devaluation phase, subjects from the "paired group" received the US followed by the quinidine exposure, while subjects from the "unpaired group" received the quinidine and, 30 min later, the US. Subjects which had received the US paired with the quinidine showed a decrease of the conditioned response (CR), in contrast to subjects which had received the quinidine and the US unpaired. These results provide a useful CTA procedure in terrestrial snails. The implication of the results for learning and the physiological correlates is discussed.

Implementation and outcomes of home-based treatments for adolescents with anorexia nervosa: Study protocol for a pilot effectiveness-implementation trial

OBJECTIVE

Although family-based treatment (FBT) is considered a first-line treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa (AN), it is underutilized in community settings and is unavailable to many families for a multitude of practical reasons (e.g., costs of treatment, transportation constraints). Adapting FBT interventions for delivery in home-based and community-based settings may reduce pragmatic barriers to treatment uptake and engagement.

METHODS

This pilot effectiveness-implementation trial will assess outcomes, implementation, and mechanisms of FBT adapted for the home setting (FBT-HB), delivered in the context of community-based behavioral health agencies. Adolescents with AN-spectrum disorders (n = 50) and their caregivers will be randomly assigned to either FBT-HB or home-based treatment as usual (TAU; integrated family therapy approach). Caregivers and adolescents will provide data on weight, eating, and putative treatment mechanisms, including caregiver self-efficacy and adolescent eating-related and weight-related distress. Implementation constructs of feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness will be measured among providers and participating families.

HYPOTHESES

We expect that FBT-HB will be feasible, acceptable, and appropriate, and will outperform TAU in terms of improvements in adolescent weight and eating-related psychopathology. We further expect that caregiver self-efficacy and adolescent eating-related and weight-related distress, but not general distress, will show greater improvements in FBT-HB relative to TAU and will be associated with better adolescent weight and eating outcomes in FBT-HB.

POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS

The proposed study has clear potential to advance scientific and clinical understanding of the real-world effectiveness of FBT for AN, including whether adapting it for the home setting improves its accessibility and effects on treatment outcome.

Making habits measurable beyond what they are not: A focus on associative dual-process models

Habits are the subject of intense international research. Under the associative dual-process model the outcome devaluation paradigm has been used extensively to classify behaviours as being either goal-directed (sensitive to shifts in the value of associated outcomes) or habitual (triggered by stimuli without anticipation of consequences). This has proven to be a useful framework for studying the neurobiology of habit and relevance of habits in clinical psychopathology. However, in recent years issues have been raised about this rather narrow definition of habits in comparison to habitual behaviour experienced in the real world. Specifically, defining habits as the absence of goal-directed control, the very specific set-ups required to demonstrate habit experimentally and the lack of direct evidence for habits as stimulus-response behaviours are viewed as problematic. In this review paper we address key critiques that have been raised about habit research within the framework of the associative dual-process model. We then highlight novel research approaches studying different features of habits with methods that expand beyond traditional paradigms.

Cyclic estrogen and progesterone during instrumental acquisition contributes to habit formation in female rats

Habit formation is thought to involve two parallel processes that are mediated by distinct neural substates: one that suppresses goal-directed behavior, and one that facilitates stimulus-response (S-R) learning, which underscores habitual behavior. In previous studies we showed that habitual responding emerges early during instrumental training in gonadally-intact female, compared to male, rats. The present study aimed to determine the role of ovarian hormones during instrumental acquisition in the transition from goal-directed to habitual behavior in female rats. Ovariectomized (OVX) female rats were given subcutaneous silastic capsules that released low levels of 17-β estradiol (E2) to maintain estrogen receptor availability. Rats were assigned to one of three hormone treatment conditions: no additional hormone replacement (Control group), replacement with high E2 (High E2 group), or replacement with high E2 followed by progesterone (High E2 + P4 group). Hormone replacement occurred twice during acquisition to mimic natural hormone fluctuations. At test, the Control and High E2 groups demonstrated responding that was sensitive to devaluation by lithium chloride-induced illness, indicating goal-directed behavior. In contrast, the High E2 + P4 group exhibited a pattern of devaluation-insensitive, habitual responding, that suggested the suppression of goal-directed processes. In a follow-up experiment, similar procedures were conducted, however during acquisition, OVX rats were given cyclic high E2 plus medroxy-progesterone (MPA), a form of progesterone that does not metabolize to neuroactive metabolites. In this group, goal-directed behavior was observed. These data indicate that habit formation is not facilitated in low estrogen states, nor in the presence of cyclic high E2. However, cyclic high E2, together with progesterone during acquisition, appears to facilitate the early emergence of habitual responding. Furthermore, these data suggest that a neuroactive progesterone metabolite, like allopregnanolone, in combination with high cyclic E2, supports this phenomenon.

Context, attention, and the switch between habit and goal-direction in behavior

This article reviews recent findings from the author’s laboratory that may provide new insights into how habits are made and broken. Habits are extensively practiced behaviors that are automatically evoked by antecedent cues and performed without their goal (or reinforcer) “in mind.” Goal-directed actions, in contrast, are instrumental behaviors that are performed because their goal is remembered and valued. New results suggest that actions may transition to habit after extended practice when conditions encourage reduced attention to the behavior. Consistent with theories of attention and learning, a behavior may command less attention (and become habitual) as its reinforcer becomes well-predicted by cues in the environment; habit learning is prevented if presentation of the reinforcer is uncertain. Other results suggest that habits are not permanent, and that goal-direction can be restored by several environmental manipulations, including exposure to unexpected reinforcers or context change. Habits are more context-dependent than goal-directed actions are. Habit learning causes retroactive interference in a way that is reminiscent of extinction: It inhibits, but does not erase, goal-direction in a context-dependent way. The findings have implications for the understanding of habitual and goal-directed control of behavior as well as disordered behaviors like addictions.

Effect of context on the instrumental reinforcer devaluation effect produced by taste-aversion learning

Four experiments manipulated the context in which taste-aversion conditioning occurred when the reinforcer was devalued after instrumental learning. In all experiments, rats learned to lever press in an operant conditioning chamber and then had an aversion to the food-pellet reinforcer conditioned by pairing it with lithium chloride (LiCl) in either that context or a different context. Lever pressing was then tested in extinction to assess its status as a goal-directed action. In Experiment 1, aversion conditioning in the operant conditioning chamber suppressed lever-pressing during the test, but aversion conditioning in the home cage did not. Exposure to the averted pellet in the operant conditioning chamber after conditioning in the home cage did not change this effect (Experiment 2). The same pattern was observed when the different context was a second operant-style chamber (counterbalanced), exposure to the contexts was controlled, and pellets were presented in them in the same manner (Experiment 3). The greater effect of aversion conditioning in the instrumental context was not merely due to potentiated contextual conditioning (Experiment 4). Importantly, consumption tests revealed that the aversion conditioned in the different context had transferred to the test context. Thus, when reinforcer devaluation occurred in a different context, the rats lever pressed in extinction for a reinforcer they would otherwise reject. The results suggest that animals encode contextual information about the reinforcer during instrumental learning and suggest caution in making inferences about action versus habit learning when the reinforcer is devalued in a different context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

BEHAVIORAL AND NEUROBIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF PAVLOVIAN AND INSTRUMENTAL EXTINCTION LEARNING

This article reviews the behavioral neuroscience of extinction, the phenomenon in which a behavior that has been acquired through Pavlovian or instrumental (operant) learning decreases in strength when the outcome that reinforced it is removed. Behavioral research indicates that neither Pavlovian nor operant extinction depends substantially on erasure of the original learning but instead depends on new inhibitory learning that is primarily expressed in the context in which it is learned, as exemplified by the renewal effect. Although the nature of the inhibition may differ in Pavlovian and operant extinction, in either case the decline in responding may depend on both generalization decrement and the correction of prediction error. At the neural level, Pavlovian extinction requires a tripartite neural circuit involving the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus. Synaptic plasticity in the amygdala is essential for extinction learning, and prefrontal cortical inhibition of amygdala neurons encoding fear memories is involved in extinction retrieval. Hippocampal-prefrontal circuits mediate fear relapse phenomena, including renewal. Instrumental extinction involves distinct ensembles in corticostriatal, striatopallidal, and striatohypothalamic circuits as well as their thalamic returns for inhibitory (extinction) and excitatory (renewal and other relapse phenomena) control over operant responding. The field has made significant progress in recent decades, although a fully integrated biobehavioral understanding still awaits.

Renewal of goal direction with a context change after habit learning

An instrumental action can be goal-directed after a moderate amount of practice and then convert to habit after more extensive practice. Recent evidence suggests, however, that habits can return to action status after different environmental manipulations. The present experiments therefore asked whether habit learning interferes with goal direction in a context-dependent manner like other types of retroactive interference (e.g., extinction, punishment, counterconditioning). In Experiment 1, rats were given a moderate amount of instrumental training to form an action in one context (Context A) and then more extended training of the same response to form a habit in another context (Context B). We then performed reinforcer devaluation with taste aversion conditioning in both contexts, and tested the response in both contexts. The response remained habitual in Context B, but was goal-directed in Context A, indicating renewal of goal direction after habit learning. Experiment 2 expanded on Experiment 1 by testing the response in a third context (Context C). It found that the habitual response also renewed as action in this context. Together, the results establish a parallel between habit and extinction learning: Conversion to habit does not destroy action knowledge, but interferes with it in a context-specific way. They are also consistent with other results suggesting that habit is specific to the context in which it is learned, whereas goal-direction can transfer between contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).