Deciphering decision making: exploring the interactions between neural and neurochemical systems underlying the evaluation versus employment of cognitive effort in rats

解读决策：探索大鼠认知努力评估与运用背后的神经和神经化学系统之间的相互作用

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-05006
• 负责人: Winstanley, Catharine
• 金额: $ 3.5万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=668717
• 关键词: Deciphering; decision; making; exploring; interactions

Most of the key decisions that determine our economic success involve the choice between something easy that provides lower returns, or something difficult that, should we succeed, provides great reward. Understanding how our brains make such decisions is one of the primary goals of the academic disciplines of cognitive and behavioural neuroscience. A lot of useful information is obtained from studying the decision making of healthy volunteers in laboratory-based games, but it is often hard to determine whether relationships observed between, say, brain activity and choice patterns indicate that a brain region is causing someone to act a certain way, or simply correlates with behavior. By translating these games into behavioral tasks for non-human animals, such as laboratory rats, it is possible to directly test the strength of causal relationships between brain regions and decision making, as it is possible to temporarily shut down neural activity in a particular brain region with incredible precision and control. Furthermore, it is possible to determine what kinds of brain chemicals are involved in decision making by giving rats different drugs, such as purified forms of cannabis, and evaluating whether such compounds really do alter cognition, and over what kind of timescale. Are the effects present right away, and how do they change if the drugs are given repeatedly? ******To try and answer such questions, we have developed the rat cognitive effort task (rCET). In this task, rats choose whether to perform an attentionally demanding task, in which they have to correctly spot a very brief light stimulus, or an easier task, in which the light is turned on for longer and is therefore easier to locate. Correct performance of a more difficult option leads to a greater amount of reward. Interestingly, there are marked individual differences in the degree to which animals select the harder trials, leading to the classification of animals as either “workers” or “slackers”. This classification is independent of animals' ability to perform the hard or easy trials i.e. both workers and slackers are just as good at detecting the visual target, regardless of how difficult that is. Therefore, it would appear that willingness to exert cognitive effort is distinct from, and can vary regardless of, the ability to perform a more effortful task. We now want to use this behavioral game for rats to figure out which brain regions and brain chemicals regulate decision making, and what drugs that alter willingness to work actually do to the neurons inside the brain to produce their behavioral effects (do they activate certain brain areas, or reduce cell-to-cell communication?) In the long term, we want to find out if we can tell what makes some rats naturally more likely to choose harder, but more rewarding options, and some to want to “slack off”. These are the goals of this research program.

决定我们的经济成功的大多数关键决策都涉及在提供较低回报的简单事物之间的选择，或者如果我们成功的情况下，很困难的东西都提供了巨大的回报。了解我们的大脑如何做出这样的决定是认知和行为神经科学学术学科的主要目标之一。通过研究基于实验室的游戏的健康志愿者的决策来获得许多有用的信息，但是通常很难确定是否在大脑活动和选择模式之间观察到关系表明大脑区域正在导致某人以某种方式行动，或者与行为相关。通过将这些游戏转化为非人类动物（例如实验室大鼠）的行为任务，可以直接测试大脑区域与决策之间灾难性关系的强度，因为有可能暂时关闭具有令人难以置信的精度和控制的特定大脑区域的神经活动。此外，可以通过给大鼠不同的药物（例如纯化的大麻形式）来确定决策中涉及哪种大脑化学物质，并评估这种化合物是否确实会改变认知，以及在哪种时间表上。是否立即存在效果，如果反复给出药物，它们如何改变？ *****尝试回答这样的问题，我们已经制定了大鼠认知工作任务（RCET）。在此任务中，老鼠选择是否执行一项注意力要求的任务，在该任务中，他们必须正确地发现一个非常简短的灯光刺激或更容易的任务，在该任务中，将光线打开更长的时间，因此更容易找到。更难选择的正确性能会带来更多的奖励。有趣的是，动物选择更艰难的试验的程度有明显的个体差异，从而导致动物将动物分类为“工人”或“懒惰者”。这种分类独立于动物执行艰苦或轻松试验的能力，即工人和懒惰者都在检测视觉目标方面同样擅长，而不管这有多困难。因此，似乎愿意发挥认知努力的意愿与执行更有效任务的能力不同，并且可以改变。现在，我们想使用这种行为游戏供大鼠找出哪些大脑区域和大脑化学物质调节决策的决定，哪些改变工作意愿的药物实际上对大脑内部的神经元产生了其行为效应（它们会激活某些大脑区域，或减少细胞对细胞的交流？这些是该研究计划的目标。