Classical Conditioning Explanation of Drug Tolerance and Overdose

Behaviour and mind

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAINBODY...................................................................................................................................2
Critically evaluate the classical conditioning explanation of drug tolerance and overdose........2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Behaviour and Brain are combined form of psychology which are concerned with how
mental capacities i.e., perception, mental imagery, language, perception etc arises from the brain
functions (De Houwer and Hughes, 2020). There is strong relationship between behaviours and
mind because it denotes that a person is mentally and physically fit. However, mind and
behaviour distinct from each other as mind is where individuals develop own thoughts, beliefs
and understanding of world while behaviour of individuals denotes how individuals act in the
world or response over the existing and imaginary things. This report will critically evaluate the
classical conditioning explanation of drug tolerance and overdose.
MAINBODY
Critical evaluation of classical conditioning explanation of drug tolerance and overdose
Article 1: Pavlovian conditioning and heroin overdose: Reports by overdose victims
This article was published by Shepard Siegel who stated about Heroin overdose mystery
that heroin overdose deaths tripled in US and UK between year 2010 to 2014 which were
reaching almost 11,000 per year. Many victims died after self-administration of fixed amount of
opiate that could not be expected fatal except drug tolerance. To resolve the overdose mystery,
there were some authors in which one describe an explanation based on pavlovian conditioning
that if a drug is administered in the presence of novel cues then tolerance fails to occur and
victim suffers from the overdose. Apart from this, RAMOO, (2019) quoted in published article
that, according to Ivan Pavlov, classical condition is a learning procedure in which a biologically
potent stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus. Pavlov has explained classical
condition term by doing a famous experiment. In his experiment, Pavlov would ring the bell for
the dogs before giving food. Only ringing the bell would cause animal to salivate, even in the
absence of food (Beletsky, 2019). So, this ringing of the bell process is known as neutral
stimulus (NS), while salivation due to presence of food is known as unconditioned response
(UR). Salivation in response just because of the ringing the bell only in absence of food is
known as conditioned response (CR). As same in the case of drug addiction, withdrawal effects
require to be existed in order for classical conditioning only. While neutral stimulus needs to