Defining the Ensemble‐Specific Activity Signatures Controlling Cocaine Reinforcement

The HPA axis and cocaine reinforcement.

Scientists have been aware of the existence of a complex relationship between stress and the subsequent activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the endocrine and neurobehavioral effects of cocaine for many years now. Our research program has focused on the involvement of HPA axis activation in cocaine reinforcement using the intravenous self-administration model. Behavio...

Community reinforcement therapy for cocaine-dependent outpatients.

OBJECTIVE To examine the contributions of community reinforcement therapy to outcome in the community reinforcement approach (CRA) + vouchers outpatient treatment for cocaine dependence. METHODS One hundred cocaine-dependent outpatients were randomly assigned to one of 2 treatment conditions: CRA + vouchers or vouchers only. All patients earned incentives in the form of vouchers exchangeable ...

Serotonin1B receptor stimulation enhances cocaine reinforcement.

The effects of serotonin1B [5-hydroxytryptamine1B (5-HT1B)] receptor activation on cocaine reinforcement were investigated using intravenous cocaine self-administration by rats. The 5-HT1B receptor agonists 5-methoxy-3-1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-4-pyridinyl-1H-indole (RU 24969) (0.3-3 mg/kg), 3-(1,2,5, 6-tetrahydro-4-pyridyl)-5-propoxypyrrolo[3,2-b]pyridine (CP 94,253) (0.3-3 mg/kg), and 3-(1,2,5,6-tet...

The Involvement of Nitric Oxide in Cocaine Reinforcement Processes

Controlling Genetic Algorithms With Reinforcement Learning

Here we present a hybrid system that uses a reinforcement learning agent to improve the performance of a genetic algorithm on the travelling salesman problem (TSP). The agent uses Q(λ) learning to estimate state-action utility values, which it uses to implement high-level adaptive control over the genetic algorithm. In this way the agent influences selection of both crossover and mutation opera...