Do psychostimulants like amphetamine increase the "rate" of behavioral conditioning?
Hey Askscience, I was thinking about this lately and am hoping I could get some information from someone knowledgeable.
I'm sure the specifics of it's action are complicated, but, as I understand it, dopamine plays a major role in the brain's reward system.
Psychostimulants like amphetamine, methylphenidate, and cocaine modulate dopamine activity. They generally do something along the lines of increasing the rate of its release or extending its action in synapses by preventing it from being expunged.
So, my question is: is dopamines role in reward such that these psychostimulants actually increase conditioning? Obviously these drugs can be addictive, and I guess addiction is a kind of hijacked conditioning, but do psychostimulants increase general conditioning? If someone on amphetamine performs an action that would normally be rewarded by the brain, is the intensity of the reward increased in such a way that the person is more powerfully conditioned to perform that action again?
For example, if a dog was dosed with amphetamine before a training session, would the training be more effective?
Let me be clear, I understand that amphetamine increases motivation, drive, and focus while it is actually acting on the brain. A dog on amphetamine would probably appear more driven and attentive during the training session, what I want to know is whether, after the training session is over and the amphetamine has left the dogs system, would the dog be more well trained than if he had been trained without the amphetamine in system?
I hope this question is appropriate. Amphetamine is used as a medicine, so I guess this might be considered a medical query. I've had problems posting to askscience before, especially when I'm asking question related to behaviorism. It seems like this question should be ok, but If this is considered inappropriate, I understand and apologize.
Thanks in advance.
Posted Dec 2, 2011, 2:12 AM UTC