# Establishing a link between habits and punishment resistance

> **NIH NIH R01** · TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $70,275

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
From the parent grant: The defining characteristic of addiction is an uncontrollable urge to use drugs
despite negative consequences (i.e., punishment). Addicted individuals find it difficult to curb drug-seeking behaviors
even when they lead to harmful consequences, indicating that these behaviors are resistant to punishment.
A similar type of punishment resistance has been observed in recent animal models of addiction, with a
subset of rats continuing to self-administer cocaine despite receiving footshock. A prevailing view in the field is
that punishment resistance arises from failure to exert goal-directed control over habits. However, a major gap
in this account is that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support it. While goal-directed and habitual behaviors
are known to be mediated by separate neural systems in dorsomedial striatum and dorsolateral striatum,
respectively, much less is known about how punishment affects well-established behavior guided by these systems.
Without a clear understanding of what drives punishment resistance in addiction, development of successful
treatment strategies will continue to be hindered. The overall objective of this project is to establish a link
between habitual responding and punishment resistance in a rat self-administration model. The central hypothesis
is that punishment resistance stems from a failure to switch from habitual responding to goal-directed control,
due to reduced recruitment of cortical and thalamic inputs to dorsomedial striatum. The specific aims of this
project are to: determine the role of habitual responding in punishment resistance, identify striatal components
involved in punishment resistance and sensitivity, and identify inputs to striatum that mediate the response to
punishment. These aims will be investigated using a systems-level approach that involves translationally-relevant
animal models of addiction, optogenetic tools, and a novel outcome devaluation procedure that was developed
to assess habitual responding for cocaine. These studies will provide critical new evidence for the theoretical
framework commonly used by the field, and provide key insights into the behavioral processes and neurobiological
mechanisms of compulsive drug use despite negative consequences.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10628728
- **Project number:** 3R01DA046457-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** RACHEL J SMITH
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $70,275
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-12-15 → 2023-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10628728

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10628728, Establishing a link between habits and punishment resistance (3R01DA046457-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-14 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10628728. Licensed CC0.

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