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Conditioned place preference


Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a form of Pavlovian conditioning used to measure the motivational effects of objects or experiences. This paradigm can also be used to measure conditioned place aversion with an identical procedure involving aversive stimuli instead. Both procedures usually involve mice or rats as subjects. This procedure can be used to measure extinction and reinstatement of the conditioned stimulus. Certain drugs are used in this paradigm to measure their reinforcing properties. Two different methods are used to choose the compartments to be conditioned, and these are biased vs. unbiased. The biased method allows the animal to explore the apparatus, and the compartment they least prefer is the one that the drug is administered in and the one they most prefer is the one where the vehicle is injected. This method allows the animal to choose the compartment they get the drug and vehicle in. In comparison, the unbiased method does not allow the animal to choose what compartment they get the drug and vehicle in and instead the researcher chooses the compartments.

Humans have also been shown to develop conditioned place preferences; for example, individuals taking therapeutic doses of amphetamine develop a CPP for where they consumed the drug.

As in Pavlovian conditioning, an initially neutral stimulus, in this case environmental cues, is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus that naturally produces a response prior to conditioning (the unconditioned response). Over time and pairings the neutral stimulus will come to elicit responses similar to the unconditioned response. In conditioned place preference the unconditioned stimulus could be any number of things including food pellets, water, sweet fluid, novel toys, social interaction, drug intoxication, drug withdrawal, foot shock, illness, wheel running or copulation. The initially neutral environmental cues become associated with the motivational properties of the unconditioned stimulus leading to either approach or avoidance of the environment. Often in practice there is a control and treatment group used to strengthen the ability to make causal claims from the results. The treatment group is administered the unconditioned stimulus while the control group is given saline or nothing to control for all elements of the procedure.


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