Alcohol Ataxia Tolerance: Extinction Cues, Spontaneous Recovery, and Relapse

Abstract

This article reviews ethanol ataxic tolerance experiments with rats that investigate spontaneous recovery after extinction and how extinction-related cues reduce this recovery. Tolerance to the effects of many drugs including ethanol is partly the result of Pavlovian conditioning. Tolerance to the ataxic (and other) effects of ethanol depends critically upon the circumstances in which the drug is administered. Tolerance shows other characteristics common in Pavlovian conditioning, e.g.,. it can be extinguished and is subject to spontaneous recovery. The analogy of spontaneous recovery to instances of relapse in humans potentially makes such spontaneous recovery relevant to both researchers and clinicians. Recently, "extinction cues" have been found to reduce spontaneous recovery and other relapse- like effects in the animal conditioning laboratory. These cues may work in part by activating an association formed during the extinction process, and thus they may serve as memory retrieval cues. Research assessing spontaneous recovery using an ethanol ataxia method, as well as other Pavlovian conditioning methods, has contributed to an understanding of the properties and utility of extinction cues. These topics are addressed and the potential implications of this research for treating substance abusers is considered.