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State-Dependent Learning Produced by Alcohol and Its Relevance to Alcoholism

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The Biology of Alcoholism

Abstract

A behavior learned while an animal is drugged sometimes fails to appear during subsequent nondrug test trials, although it appears reliably whenever the drug is readministered. Conversely, if the same behavior is learned when the animal is not drugged, it may then be performed only as long as the animal remains undrugged. For some reason, the ability to perform appears to be conditional upon the drug conditions present during initial acquisition (Overton, 1964). Experimental workers generally refer to this surprising phenomenon as “dissociated” learning or as “state dependent” learning. Clinically trained readers may find it convenient to think of the drug as inducing a sort of temporary “fugue” state separated from the nondrug state by a partial or complete amnesic barrier.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Temple Medical Center, USA

    Donald A. Overton

  2. Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Donald A. Overton

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  1. Donald A. Overton
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA

    Benjamin Kissin  & Henri Begleiter  & 

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© 1972 Plenum Press, New York

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Overton, D.A. (1972). State-Dependent Learning Produced by Alcohol and Its Relevance to Alcoholism. In: Kissin, B., Begleiter, H. (eds) The Biology of Alcoholism. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0895-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0895-9_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-0897-3

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