Habituation

Habituation is a form of learning where an organism decreases or ceases its responses to a stimulus after repeated or prolonged exposure.
It can be considered as the simplest form of learning, involving behavioural change and no reward or punishment.
Habituation is non-associative learning, where the behaviour towards a stimulus changes not due to association with another stimulus or event, but due to repeated exposure.

Habituation involves changes in the nervous system, including the changes at the level of the synapse.
Stimuli generate neural signals via sensory organs, which then travel through neural pathways triggering the organism’s response.
With the repetitive presentation of a stimulus, fewer and fewer action potentials are generated, reducing the response.
The decrease in responsiveness might be due to neural adaptation (a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system), or changes in synaptic efficiency (a reduction in neurotransmitter release by sensory neurons).
On the molecular level, habituation may involve changes in ion channels affecting neurotransmitter release, and/or activation of second messenger systems that reduce synaptic transmission.

An example could be a person living near a train station gradually becoming less aware of the noise, or a repeated tapping on a subject’s skin leading to a decrease in skin conductance response.
Habituation also affects many aspects of behaviour in animals. For example, birds may stop responding to alarm calls if these are too frequent and not associated with a real threat.

Habituation is essential for filtering out irrelevant stimuli and for focusing attention on significant changes in the environment.
It plays a role in many aspects of animal and human behaviour, including the capacity to ignore irrelevant stimuli and decrease in fear response in therapy.
It’s a key process for understanding more complex learning mechanisms and cognitive processes, as well as disorders like ADHD and sensory processing disorders.

Irregular habituation could potentially lead to sensory overload or inappropriate responses to stimuli.
It has been studied in relation to various psychological and neurological disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Alterations in habituation patterns in these conditions provide insights into their underlying pathologies.
Research into habituation mechanisms, their irregularities, and correction can contribute to the development of therapeutic strategies for these disorders.