Conklin Cynthia A
Western Psychiatric Institute and ClinicUniversity of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2006 Feb;14(1):12-9. doi: 10.1037/1064-1297.14.1.12.
Animal research has shown that the environments, or contexts, in which drug use occurs can play a key role in how animals respond to drug-related cues. Less is known about the role of environmental contexts in human drug-dependence research. Traditionally, cue-based studies and treatments focus on conditioned cues most proximal to drug administration (e.g., lit cigarettes, pictorial stimuli of drug paraphernalia). However, there is reason to believe that more distal cues, such as the environments in which drugs were previously used, might similarly gain associative control over human responding. This article describes a body of systematic research aimed at identifying and studying the impact of environmental contexts on smokers' cue reactivity in the laboratory. Overall, results of this program of research demonstrate that exposure to environments associated with smoking, but completely devoid of proximal smoking cues, can function as conditioned stimuli capable of evoking strong subjective responding from abstinent smokers. Furthermore, more robust reactivity can be achieved if environmental context cues are personalized using novel techniques described in this article.
动物研究表明，药物使用发生的环境或背景在动物对与药物相关线索的反应方式中可能起关键作用。在人类药物依赖研究中，环境背景的作用鲜为人知。传统上，基于线索的研究和治疗聚焦于与药物给药最接近的条件线索（例如，点燃的香烟、吸毒用具的图片刺激）。然而，有理由相信，更远端的线索，比如以前使用药物的环境，可能同样会对人类的反应获得联想控制。本文描述了一系列系统研究，旨在识别和研究环境背景对实验室中吸烟者线索反应性的影响。总体而言，该研究项目的结果表明，暴露于与吸烟相关但完全没有近端吸烟线索的环境中，可以作为条件刺激，能够唤起戒烟者强烈的主观反应。此外，如果使用本文所述的新技术对环境背景线索进行个性化处理，可以实现更强的反应性。
