Toward an Animal Model of Gambling: The Economics of Risky Choice

走向赌博的动物模型：风险选择的经济学

• 批准号: 7486459
• 负责人: Carla Hames Lagorio
• 金额: $ 2.9万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-05-15 至 2010-05-14
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7486459
• 关键词: Address; Affect; Animal Experimentation; Animal Model; Animals; Behavior; Behavioral; Budgets; Condition; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Disease; Economics; Environment; Equation; Food; Gambling; Goals; Human; Income; Individual; Lead; Literature; Low income; Maintenance; Methodology; Methods; Modeling; Numbers; Organism; Outcome; Participant; Pathological Gambling; Pharmacological Treatment; Plant Roots; Population; Procedures; Public Health; Range; Recurrence; Research; Rewards; Risk; Risk Behaviors; Risk-Taking; Sampling; System; Testing; Time; Token Economy; Work; design; desire; preference; reinforcer; research study; response

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pathological gambling is recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior that persists despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. Although the amount of research focused on gambling has increased in recent years, only about 3% involves controlled experimentation. Most research that does exist with human participants suffers from serious methodological shortcomings, highlighting the need to develop more rigorous methods for studying the variables contributing to problem gambling. Animal research can alleviate many procedural limitations by allowing for controlled experimentation over extended periods of time. The primary goal of the proposed research is to develop a rigorous animal model of gambling that captures important features of human gambling, such as those related to increased preference for risky alternatives. A critical feature of gambling is the unpredictability of win amounts, yet little empirical work has examined such effects on continued risk taking. One current research aim is to conduct a controlled analysis of amount preferences using a token reward methodology, which allows for rewards to be delivered in varying magnitudes and later exchanged for food. By systematically altering the magnitudes for certain and uncertain payoffs, we aim to empirically establish the value of the two alternatives in relation to the proportion of tokens provided by that alternative. These manipulations will determine conditions that optimally produce preferences for the uncertain (risky) and certain (non-gambling) win amounts. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that organisms are more risk-prone when their income is restricted. A second aim is to examine how the amount of available income influences preference for the unpredictable reward amount. Token rewards permit a methodology analogous to currency in humans, in which the amount of available income can be manipulated. Subjects will be provided with income tokens, which can then be individually traded for gambling opportunities. Such manipulations address how different income levels affect preference for uncertain payoffs, in addition to evaluating preferences between different distributions of gambling outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research is relevant to public health in that the development of an animal model of gambling is necessary to empirically evaluate factors that may function to reduce preferences for risky, unpredictable outcomes. When variables contributing to risky choice are better understood, pharmacological and behavioral variables hypothesized to reduce such behavior can be explored in a controlled experimental environment free of limitations imposed by current gambling research. Beyond a model of gambling, this research has implications for understanding risky behavior in other characteristically impulsive populations.

描述（由申请人提供）：病理赌博是反复出现的不良适应性赌博行为，尽管有有害的负面后果或停止的愿望，但仍然存在。尽管关注赌博的研究量增加了，但只有大约3％的研究涉及受控的实验。人类参与者确实存在的大多数研究都有严重的方法论上的缺点，强调需要开发更严格的方法来研究导致问题赌博的变量。动物研究可以通过允许长时间的受控实验来缓解许多程序局限性。拟议研究的主要目标是开发一种严格的赌博模型，该模型捕获人类赌博的重要特征，例如与越来越偏爱风险替代品有关的赌博。赌博的一个关键特征是胜利金额的不可预测性，但几乎没有经验工作对持续冒险的影响进行了研究。当前的一个研究目的是使用令牌奖励方法对数量偏好进行受控的分析，该方法允许以不同的幅度传递奖励，然后换成食物。通过系统地改变某些和不确定的回报的幅度，我们旨在从经验上建立与该替代方案提供的令牌比例有关的两种选择的价值。这些操作将确定最佳的条件，这些条件对不确定（风险）和某些（非骗局）的胜利金额产生偏好。此外，已经证明，当限制收入时，生物体更容易容易风险。第二个目的是研究可用收入的数量如何影响对不可预测的奖励金额的偏好。令牌奖励允许一种类似于人类货币的方法，可以操纵可用收入的数量。受试者将提供收入令牌，然后可以单独交易赌博机会。除了评估赌博结果的不同分布之间的偏好外，这种操纵如何解决不同收入水平如何影响对不确定收益的偏好。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究与公共卫生相关，因为赌博模型的发展对于凭经验评估可能起作用的因素，以减少风险，不可预测的结果的偏好。当更好地理解有助于冒险选择的变量时，可以在受控的实验环境中探索假设可以减少这种行为的药理和行为变量，而无需当前赌博研究施加的限制。除了赌博模型之外，这项研究对理解其他有特征性冲动的人群中的风险行为具有影响。