Motivational state-dependent renewal and reinstatement: Discriminative and motivational functions of food deprivation and satiation states

Interoceptive stimuli (e.g., those associated with drugs and other motivational/emotional states) can acquire discriminative control over behavior when they are reliably correlated with particular Pavlovian or operant contingencies. This has been called state-dependent learning. Recent studies have shown that extinction learning can be specific to the interoceptive context in which it occurs, and interoceptive conditions can also contribute to the state-dependent renewal of operant behavior following extinction. Many of the events that induce interoceptive conditions that may contribute to renewal following extinction in this way concurrently function as motivating operations (MOs) that alter the value of reinforcers for operant behavior, and these functions may also contribute to the recovery of extinguished behavior. Three experiments were conducted to study interactions between the discriminative functions of interoceptive contexts associated with food deprivation and satiation MOs and their motivational functions in the renewal and reinstatement of extinguished operant behavior. We found evidence of the motivational state-dependent effects of extinction, as well as state-dependent renewal and reinstatement of operant behavior under food deprivation conditions. However, state-dependent renewal and reinstatement were not observed under food satiation conditions, even when these served as acquisition or non-extinction contexts. The results suggest that interoceptive states associated with food deprivation/satiation MOs can serve as discriminative parts of context that contribute to the recovery of extinguished operant behavior, but that relatively little renewal/reinstatement may be expected in the absence of the relevant motivational conditions.