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）：病态赌博是一种反复出现的适应不良的赌博行为，尽管产生有害的负面后果或希望停止，但这种行为仍然持续存在。尽管近年来针对赌博的研究数量有所增加，但只有约 3% 涉及对照实验。大多数针对人类参与者的研究都存在严重的方法论缺陷，这凸显出需要开发更严格的方法来研究导致问题赌博的变量。动物研究可以通过长时间进行受控实验来缓解许多程序限制。拟议研究的主要目标是开发严格的赌博动物模型，捕捉人类赌博的重要特征，例如与对风险替代品的偏好增加相关的特征。赌博的一个关键特征是获胜金额的不可预测性，但很少有实证研究研究这种对持续冒险的影响。当前的一项研究目标是使用代币奖励方法对金额偏好进行受控分析，该方法允许以不同的幅度提供奖励，然后兑换成食物。通过系统地改变某些和不确定的回报的大小，我们的目标是凭经验确定两种替代方案相对于该替代方案提供的代币比例的价值。这些操作将确定对不确定（有风险）和某些（非赌博）获胜金额产生最佳偏好的条件。此外，已经证明，当生物体的收入受到限制时，它们更容易面临风险。第二个目标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。代币奖励允许采用类似于人类货币的方法，可以操纵可用收入的数量。受试者将获得收入代币，然后可以单独交易这些代币以获得赌博机会。除了评估不同赌博结果分布之间的偏好之外，此类操纵还解决了不同收入水平如何影响对不确定收益的偏好。 公共健康相关性：拟议的研究与公共健康相关，因为开发赌博动物模型对于凭经验评估可能有助于减少对风险、不可预测结果的偏好的因素是必要的。当有助于风险选择的变量得到更好的理解时，可以在不受当前赌博研究强加的限制的受控实验环境中探索假设减少此类行为的药理学和行为变量。除了赌博模型之外，这项研究对于理解其他具有冲动特征的人群的危险行为也具有重要意义。