CUE REACTIVITY IN DEPENDENT AMPHETAMINE USERS - CAN MONISTIC CONDITIONING THEORIES ADVANCE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF REACTIVITY

Forty-eight dependent injecting amphetamine users (AUs) and 48 control s were exposed to an amphetamine-related video and three affective con trol videos, and their amphetamine-related responses (amphetamine symp toms, withdrawal symptoms, and for AUs, ''positive'' and ''negative'' craving, based on the desire for positive and negative reinforcement, respectively) were recorded after each one, Both groups responded to t he amphetamine video with increased withdrawal symptoms relative to co ntrol videos, suggesting that drug-related cues have significant uncon ditioned aversive properties. Between-group differences in amphetamine symptoms were evident only after the amphetamine video, supporting a conditioned drug agonistic model of cue reactivity, Among AUs, both po sitive and negative craving increased significantly after the amphetam ine video, providing prima facie evidence for both conditioned withdra wal and conditioned drug agonistic accounts of cue reactivity. However , the lack of consistent and strong correlations between the two types of craving and the affective states hypothesized to induce such cravi ng cannot be accommodated by the dominant models of the role of condit ioning in maintaining addictive behaviours, This suggests a need to bu ild upon theories of cue reactivity which predict conditioned response s to be either drug-like or drug-opposite.