Association for Behavior Analysis International

Many studies over the past 15 years have investigated choice between drug and non-drug reinforcers in rats. This presentation will focus on research manipulating behavioral economic variables in this model. Recent results from a new variation of the model, wherein rats can choose between contexts where the drug and non-drug alternative are available at different prices, and the cost of switching between contexts varies, will be presented. How economy type, income, and reinforcer interactions affect the allocation of behavior between heroin or cocaine and non-drug alternatives including social reinforcement, safety from avoidance, or saccharin will be described. Appreciation of the broader behavioral economic context within which choice occurs can help understand factors that promote or reduce drug-taking behavior.

David Kearns is a professor and chair of the Psychology Department at American University.  He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from American University, where his mentor was Stan Weiss, a previous ABA-I B.F. Skinner lecturer.  His research takes a learning and behavior approach to the study of drug taking in animal models, seeking to understand those factors that promote or reduce the self-administration of drugs in rats.  His current program of research, funded by NIDA (NIH) is titled “Opioid and Psychostimulant Taking: Testing the Impact of Behavioral Economic Contexts.”

The experience of a reward, such as the ingestion of food, is accompanied by dynamic patterns of neuronal activity across many brain regions. For example, reward ingestion is often accompanied by brief increases in spike activity of dopamine neurons, as well as other neural populations in the basal ganglia. I will discuss animal laboratory studies that illustrate the important role of behavioral approaches in revealing the functions of this reward-elicited activity with a focus on reward signals that promote future reward seeking behavior.

Intermediate - should have understanding of reinforcement and familiarity with general related brain activity.

Patricia Janak is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, with appointments in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Neuroscience in the School of Medicine. Dr. Janak earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. From 1999 to 2014, Dr. Janak was faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was the Howard J. Weinberger, M.D., Endowed Chair in Addiction Research at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Janak has served as Program Chair and Secretary for the Society for Neuroscience and is editor-in-chief for the journal, Psychopharmacology. Dr. Janak studies neural processes of reward learning, both under normal conditions and in animal models relevant to substance use disorders.  Janak and her laboratory members have made critical discoveries regarding the neurochemical and neuroanatomical bases of alcohol intake and relapse. Current work focuses on circuit level analysis of striatal systems and dopamine error signals during learning and decision making.

As Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Carl W. Lejuez (pronounced: LEZSCH-way) serves as Stony Brook’s chief academic officer, with responsibility for all academic units and operations. His appointment began on July 1, 2022.

Lejuez oversees the academic mission of the university, providing direct supervision for all academic units, support services, and operations, including enrollment management and student success, and coordinating all academic programs. The deans and directors of the West Campus colleges, schools, libraries, centers, and institutes report to him, as does the associate provost for the Lichtenstein Center. He also collaborates with the executive vice president of health sciences to support the health sciences schools on the East Campus. Across these areas, leaders work to provide greater alignment in our research enterprise, enhance interdisciplinary education, and offer enhanced services to all students and faculty.

Prior to his affiliation with Stony Brook, Lejuez served as provost and executive vice president at the University of Connecticut as well as the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, where he also served the university as interim provost for two years. He spent the bulk of his academic career at the University of Maryland, where he was a professor in the clinical psychology program in the department of psychology and where he served as an associate dean for research for the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. His other academic appointments include research professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and an adjunct faculty member at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, CT.

Lejuez’s research focuses on the use of basic laboratory research findings for the development of behavioral interventions to address a wide range of psychological conditions including mood disorders, addictions, and personality disorders for marginalized and underserved populations. At Maryland, he founded and led the Center for Addictions, Personality and Emotions Research. Lejuez has received grant funding from several sources for his research and is widely published, having also served on several editorial boards and having been a founding editor of the publication “Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment.” Moreover, he is the co-editor of the “Cambridge University Press Handbook of Personality Disorders,” published in spring 2020 and currently has a contract with Oxford University Press for a book about a transdiagnostic behavioral therapy he has developed to be part of their “Treatments that Work” series.

He proudly carries the distinction as a first-generation student. He holds his M.A. and Ph.D., both in clinical psychology, from West Virginia University; and earned his B.A. in psychology from Emory University.