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Physiology learns based on the learning configurations
embedded in your choices. You don’t
eat breakfast every morning for a week, and next thing you know you aren’t
hungry anymore in the mornings. Or,
visa versa, you travel with friends who eat breakfast, so you do also for
social reasons; next thing you know you are ravenous in the mornings. This is classical conditioning at work,
based on your decisions about when to eat and when not to. Breathing behaviours
are acquired the same way. What your
biology learns, however, is not always positive and adaptive. Vicious circle avoidance learning involves the interaction of classical conditioning, operant
conditioning, and cognitive learning.
For example, fear may be classically conditioned to the “waiting
period” between breaths, which may then provide the motivation for operant
learning of “aborting the exhale” and “rapid breathing.” The behaviours
are then short-term reinforced with fear reduction (negative
reinforcement). The likely ensuing
overbreathing may trigger “shortness of breath,” a common symptom of
hypocapnia, which may then confirm false beliefs, cognitive learning about
how “I can’t get my breath.” The
solution, of course, is to reach for yet more air, which may then result in a
downward spiral leading to a crisis episode, e.g., an asthma attack or panic
attack. Adverse physical conditions, e.g., injury or asthma, in fact, can set
the ideal stage for learning this kind self-sustaining vicious circle behaviour.
Vicious
circle behaviour may develop, where the
solution to a problem, becomes the problem.
Depleting bicarbonate buffers through chronic (long-term)
overbreathing, in predisposed individuals, may mean that even during aerobic
activities there are not adequate buffer reserves to manage lactic
acidosis. Thus, even minimal effort,
such a walking through a supermarket, may result in lactic acidosis. Overbreathing, a contributing cause to the
problem, now also becomes its own short-term solution. When bicarbonate reserve is too low, pH can
be adjusted toward normal by reducing carbon dioxide levels through
overbreathing. Click here to learn
more about acid-base balance. Click here to learn about
classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Embedded in operant learning is simultaneous classical conditioning. The reinforcement of an operant behaviour serves as a unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and elicits an unconditioned response (UCR). A version of the UCR becomes attached to the discriminative stimulus (SD) as a CR, by virtue of classical conditioning. Thus, one stimulus serves two roles: SD and CS. It triggers both the operantly and classically conditioned responses. The CS may then provide motivation for the operant behaviour, e.g., fear for learning an avoidance response.
Sugar addiction is a more formal example. “Feeling bad about yourself,”
an SD, triggers eating behaviour (an
operant) that is reinforced with the taste of food. The food (UCS) leads to secretion of
insulin (UCR) for controlling blood sugar levels. “Feeling bad about yourself,” now
associated with the food by virtue of your behaviour,
becomes a CS that triggers insulin secretion (CR), and thus lowers blood
sugar. Low blood sugar, hypoglycemia,
results in hunger, irritability, and anxiety.
You feel worse about yourself and the motivation for eating (hunger)
increases. Copyrighted by Behavioral
Physiology Institute, |