Interoceptive Stimulus Effects of Drugs of Abuse

There has been an increasing interest in the role of interoception in drug addiction. Work in this area has largely come from two different directions. The first direction being from altered neural activity in individuals with substance use disorders that impairs emotional processing. Thus, physiological changes caused by drugs or drug-associated stimuli are interpreted in ways that evoke drug cravings, thereby driving enhanced drug seeking. The second direction being from the study of operant and Pavlovian conditioning processes. Here, drug effects are conceptualized as interoceptive stimuli that acquire control over behavior. Such learned alterations involving drug stimuli come to guide drug-related behaviors that affect risk and abuse liability. This chapter delves into the point at which these approaches appear to be converging, and discusses where we are in our understanding today and how this research may inform improved therapeutic techniques.