Wk. Bickel et al., THE BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS OF CONCURRENT DRUG REINFORCERS - A REVIEW AND REANALYSIS OF DRUG SELF-ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH, Psychopharmacology, 118(3), 1995, pp. 250-259
In economics, goods can function as substitutes, complements, or be in
dependent of one another. These concepts refer to increases, decreases
, or no change in the consumption of one item as the price of a second
item increases. This review examined whether these economic terms can
be used to describe relationships between concurrently available rein
forcers in drug self-administration research. Sixteen drug self-admini
stration studies that examined the effects of concurrent reinforcers w
ere identified through a MEDLINE search. Across these studies, the fol
lowing substances were employed: caffeinated coffee, cocaine, etonitaz
ene, ethanol, heroin, food, methadone, morphine, nicotine cigarettes,
pentobarbital, phencyclidine, sucrose and water. These studies were re
analyzed and the results were shown to be consistent with these econom
ic notions. These analyses also showed that relationships among the co
ncurrently available reinforcers were reliable within and across studi
es, that concurrently available reinforcers can affect each other asym
metrically, and that the relative price may determine the magnitude of
effect for substitutes. These findings suggest that these economic co
ncepts may be useful in characterizing the type and magnitude of inter
actions between concurrently available reinforcers and may suggest pot
ential mechanisms that determine these relationships.