Damage to the corticospinal pathway often results in weak dorsiflexion of the ankle, thereby limiting the mobility of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Thus, strengthening corticospinal connectivity may improve locomotion. Here, we investigated the feasibility of tibialis anterior (TA) motor-evoked potential (MEP) operant conditioning and whether it can enhance corticospinal excitability and alleviate locomotor problems in people with chronic stable MS. The protocol consisted of 6 baseline and 24 up-conditioning sessions over 10 weeks. In all sessions, TA MEPs were elicited at 10% above active threshold while the sitting subject provided 30-35% maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) level of TA background EMG. During baseline sessions, MEPs were simply measured. During conditioning trials of the conditioning sessions, the subject was encouraged to increase MEP and was given immediate feedback indicating whether MEP size was above a criterion. In 3/4 subjects, TA MEP increased 32-75%, MVC increased 28-52%, locomotor EMG modulation improved in multiple leg muscles, and foot drop became less severe. In one of them, MEP and MVC increases were maintained throughout 3 years of extensive follow-up sessions. These initial results support a therapeutic possibility of MEP operant conditioning for improving locomotion in people with MS or other CNS disorders, such as spinal cord injury and stroke.

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Fish learning and cognition are usually approached by testing single individuals in various devices such as mazes that have serious drawbacks, especially in gregarious species, including the stress induced by the test procedure. This might impair the results and lead to misinterpretation about the learning abilities of the targeted species. In order to provide an alternative to the individual-based tests, we investigated for the first time the operant conditioning of four similar groups (50 individuals per tank) of sea bass. We used two computerized self-feeder devices per tank, each coupled with individual electronic identification and that were alternately activated during varying positive appetitive reinforcement period of time (7 to 1 day). Learning abilities were examined at both group and individual levels. At the group level, the operant conditioning was demonstrated as the triggering activity significantly decreased when the device was turned off and increased when it was turned on, whatever the reinforcement period duration. The individual level analysis revealed a more complex situation with fish showing different learning performances that can be best explained through the producer-scrounger game theory.

UNASSIGNED: The operant theory of chronic pain and related research suggest pain-related solicitous support promotes disability. The current study investigated the hypotheses that solicitous support is positively associated with both disability and relationship satisfaction and that these relationships are moderated by the level of desire for this type of support.
UNASSIGNED: Patients with chronic pain (N = 147) and in a relationship were recruited from a multidisciplinary pain treatment center. They provided self-reports of the amount of three types of pain-related support wanted and received (i.e., solicitous, encouragement, and suppression), disability, and relationship satisfaction.
UNASSIGNED: A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that solicitous support received was not significantly associated with disability. However, a moderation effect was found regarding encouragement. Encouragement received was negatively associated with disability, and this relationship was strongest at lower levels of interest in encouragement. Solicitous support received had a large positive association with relationship satisfaction.
UNASSIGNED: The findings suggest the influence of pain-related support is more complex than suggested by the operant conditioning model of chronic pain, which emphasizes the possible detrimental impact of solicitous support. Further research is warranted regarding the potential relationship enhancing effects of solicitous support and the influence of encouragement on disability experienced by those with chronic pain.

The current study aimed to benchmark clinical outcomes for preschool-aged clients (2;0-5;11 years old) that attended a student-led clinic and undertook the Lidcombe Program.
A case file audit was undertaken for all preschool clients who attended the clinic between February 2008 and February 2013 and commenced the Lidcombe Program. Clients were grouped according to Stage 1 completion. A mixed ANOVA was used to test for differences between the groups in initial and final percentage syllables stuttered (%SS). Associations between case variable factors and treatment duration were investigated using Pearson correlations.
Clients who completed Stage 1 had final %SS and severity rating (SR) scores comparable to the literature; however, the median Stage 1 duration was greater. Over half of the clients (57%) withdrew prior to completing Stage 1. These clients had a significantly higher %SS at final treatment session than their completing peers. Initial %SS and SR scores were the only case variables associated with treatment duration.
Students can achieve the same short-term treatment outcomes for children who stutter using the Lidcombe Program as the current published literature; however, treatment duration is greater and may impact completion. Implications of this for clinical education are discussed.

BACKGROUND: Relational training protocols based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT) are showing promising results in increasing intelligence quotient. This case study aimed at analyzing the effect of a training protocol in fluency and flexibility in relational responding on intelligence quotient with a 4-year-old child.
METHODS: The child’s cognitive and psychomotor development was evaluated before and after the implementation of the training protocol using the McCarthy’s Aptitudes and Psychomotricity Scale (MSCA). The training protocol consisted of a multiple-exemplar-training (MET) in relational framing in accordance with COORDINATION (Phases 1 and 2), OPPOSITION (Phase 3 and 4), and COMPARISON (Phases 5 and 6). The MET protocol was implemented in approximately 12 hours throughout five and one half months.
RESULTS: The training was effective in establishing relational responding in OPPOSITION and COMPARISON frames as well as in promoting fluency and flexibility in all the three types of trained relations. After this training, the child showed an increase above 1.5 SD in the General Cognitive Index of the MSCA (from 106 to 131).
CONCLUSIONS: This case study adds further empirical evidence of the potential of RFT training to improve cognitive abilities and intelligence.

Pigeons show the sunk cost effect in procedures in which their choice between two outcomes is biased by a prior investment. We review recent studies of the sunk cost effect in pigeons, in which choice procedures are analogous to studies with humans using hypothetical scenarios to make explicit a prior investment and the later choice. Zentall\'s (2010) theory of within-trial contrast can account for the sunk cost effect - an effortful prior investment contrasts with choice outcomes to increase the value of the outcome in which the prior investment was made. The account correctly predicts that in both pigeons and humans, increased prior investment increases the sunk cost effect. We present data from a study with humans using hypothetical scenarios in which delay was varied between the time of the prior investment and later choice. Extending the delay reduced the sunk cost effect, suggesting the need for a second process by which value is depreciated, in addition to the value-enhancing effect of contrast. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Tribute to Tom Zentall.

Traditional techniques used to capture New World monkeys, such as net capture, can induce high levels of acute stress detrimental to welfare. Alternatively, training nonhuman animals via operant conditioning to voluntarily participate in husbandry and/or veterinary practices is accepted as a humane process that can reduce stress and improve welfare. This study details the use of operant conditioning using positive reinforcement training (PRT) and target training to train a family of 5 captive red-bellied tamarins (Saguinus labiatus) in a wildlife park to voluntarily enter a transportation box and remain calm for 1 min after 54 training sessions. Observations of 2 unrelated net-capture processes provided measures of locomotion and vocalizations as indicators of stress behavior that were compared with those of the trained tamarins. Net-captured monkeys exhibited rapid erratic locomotion and emitted long, high-frequency vocalizations during capture whereas the trained tamarins exhibited minimal locomotion and emitted only 4 brief vocalizations (root mean square 35 dB) during capture. This indicates that the use of PRT considerably reduced potential for stress and improved welfare during the capture and containment of the tamarins.

OBJECTIVE: Operant conditioning interventions are effective in the management of post-acute ABI challenging behaviour. However, when this serves an avoidance or escape function, reinforcement approaches may be ineffective. In this paper the utility of a range of operant-derived ABI interventions is considered specifically with regard to behaviour whose prime function is avoidance or escape from rehabilitation activities.
METHODS: Efficacy of three operant interventions was determined by describing a single case study whose aggressive behaviour served an avoidance-escape function. Two interventions comprised variants of differential reinforcement: differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviour (DRI) and differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL). The third intervention comprised situational time out (STO) and sustained verbal prompting.
RESULTS: Despite reports of the efficacy of DRI and DRL, neither was beneficial in this case. However, STO and sustained verbal prompting proved highly effective in reducing aggression.
CONCLUSIONS: Results are discussed in relation to two levels of explanation: function and cognition. Special emphasis is laid upon the extent to which interventions actively involve the patient and the degree of intrusiveness necessary for staff to implement therapeutic procedures. The case demonstrates how a scientifically-derived formulation regarding behaviour disorder can support multiple treatment options.

Animals increase or decrease their future tendency of emitting an action based on whether performing such action has, in the past, resulted in positive or negative reinforcement. An analysis in the companion paper [Zhang, J. (2009). Adaptive learning via selectionism and Bayesianism. Part I: Connection between the two. Neural Networks, 22(3), 220-228] of such selectionist style of learning reveals a resemblance between its ensemble-level dynamics governing the change of action probability and Bayesian learning where evidence (in this case, reward) is distributively applied to all action alternatives. Here, this equivalence is further explored in solving the temporal credit-assignment problem during the learning of an action sequence (\"operant chain\"). Naturally emerging are the notion of secondary (conditioned) reinforcement predicting the average reward associated with a stimulus, and the notion of actor-critic architecture involving concurrent learning of both action probability and reward prediction. While both are consistent with solutions provided by contemporary reinforcement learning theory (Sutton & Barto, 1998) for optimizing sequential decision-making under stationary Markov environments, we investigate the effect of action learning on reward prediction when both are carried out concurrently in any on-line scheme.