Definition: Increase in the intensity or probability of an orienting response
Examples
Badley, Moulder & Lang, 2005
Pleasant or unpleasant pictures used to signal shock threat.
How previous affective associations modulate new
defensive reactions. When cuing threat of shock, pleasant
and unpleasant pictures prompted physiological profiles
consistent with defensive activation, indicating that threat
of shock renders previously pleasant cues aversive. For
unpleasant pictures only, defensive startle was potentiated
even when these cues signaled safety. Taken together, the
data indicate that (a) regardless of their intrinsic affective
meaning, cues signaling shock threat prompt somatic and
autonomic reactions consistent with defense, and that (b)
intrinsically unpleasant cues continue to prompt defensive
activation even when the context of their presentation is
specifically nonthreatening.
Frost, Brandon, and
Mongeluzi, 1998
3 cycle escape swim
motor program of the
Tintonia
Habituation
Decrease in an orienting response
When
Habituation
becomes
problematic
Opponent Process
Theory
Homeostasis
Baseline Responding or Set Points
corresponds to the
mechanisms that maintain
stability within the
physiological systems and
hold all the parameters of the
organisms internal milieu
within limits that allow an
organism to survive
It implied originally that
i) deviations from normal
set points are
automatically corrected
by local negative
feedbacks, and ii) bodily
organs are considered as
functioning
autonomously.
Subsequently,
homeostasis has been
described as a
self-regulating process
for maintaining body
parameters around a set
point critical for survival (
This includes multi-system
coordination of the
organism's response to an
acute challenge, including the
brain, pituitary, autonomic
system, and skeleto-motor
systems. However, while
some of the parameters of
the internal milieu are held
constant (like body
temperature), other
parameters like stress
hormones are varied within a
wide range in an attempt to
maintain homeostasis.
Biphasic
Primary Process
Opponent Process
Most abused drugs promote
dopaminergic signaling in pathways that
originate in the ventral tegmental area
(VTA), and these effects contribute to drug
reward and reinforcement. As the initial
positive effects of abused drugs dissipate,
they are often followed by delayed
negative effects, including states of
anxiety and aversion associated with drug
withdrawal. Classic “opponent process”
theory suggests these delayed negative
effects are a homeostatic response aimed
at returning emotional state to
equilibrium. The desire to alleviate these
negative effects may motivate further
drug use, leading to compulsive patterns
of drug abuse associated with addiction
Allostatic
allostasis proposes maintenance of stability outside of the
normal homeostatic range, where an organism must vary all
the parameters of its physiological systems to match them
appropriately to chronic demands
). Allostasis refers to the integrative adaptive processes maintaining
stability through change, a stability that is not within the normal
homeostatic range. It implies that many, if not all, physiological functions
are mobilized or suppressed, as reflected in a cascade of brain-organism
interactions overriding local regulation. By controlling all the mechanisms
simultaneously, the brain can enforce its command and introduce
experience, memories, anticipation and re-evaluation of needs in
anticipation of physiological requirements. The allostatic model, because
it involves the whole brain and body instead of simply local feedbacks, is
far more complex than homeostasis. All parameters of a given domain
(e.g., blood pressure, or in the central nervous system reward function)
are controlled by numerous mutually interacting signals. When demands
become chronic, the brain-body system tonically adapts at essentially all
levels of organization implying widespread changes in set points, and en
when one emotion is experienced, the other is suppressed
Habituation is to a decrease in the orienting
response; as sensitization is to an increase in
the orienting response.