In particular, negative alliesthesia refers to the notion that repeated administration of a stimulus will affect the internal milieu in such a way that the rewarding aspects of the stimulus are attenuated (e.g., the second or third piece of chocolate does not feel as good as the first). In contrast, positive alliesthesia is observed if the repeated administration (or omission) of a stimulus changes the internalmilieu in such a way as to increase its rewarding aspects. For example, fasting can enhance the subjective pleasantness of food images (Stoeckel et al., 2007). These phenomena can also be observed in animals. Specifically, pre-feeding has been associated with negative alliesthesia (Zhao and Cabanac, 1994), whereas food restriction was found to increase the sensory reward derived from alcohol, which is an example of positive alliesthesia (Soderpalm and Hansen, 1999). Based on the alliesthesia construct, some investigators proposed a dynamic, homeostatic hypothesis of pleasure regulation (Cabanac et al., 2002). This hypothesis proposes that: (1) we experience the intensity of a reward based on the evaluation of the stimulus relative to our internal state, and (2) we engage regulatory mechanisms to maximize the hedonic aspect of the internal state. This approach shares features with the notion of allostatic dysregulation as an underlying process of addiction as proposed by Le Moal and Koob (2007). Similar to the allostatic approach, the alliesthesia construct can be applied to both rewarding and aversive stimuli, but additionally the alliesthesia concept provides an explicit connection between the internal state (i.e. interoception) and rewarding or aversive stimuli in the environment. In particular, the reference to an internal state identifies additional circuitry, i.e. insular cortex and its connectivity to frontal cortical and extended amygdala circuits, which can be empirically tested for its role in processing appetitive or aversive stimuli. (Paulus, Tapert, and Schulteis 2009, 8)
References
Paulus, Martin P., Susan F. Tapert, and Gery Schulteis. 2009. “The role of interoception and alliesthesia in addiction.” Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior 94 (1): 1–7. doi:10.1016/j.pbb.2009.08.005.