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: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=689659
• 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.

决定我们经济成功与否的大多数关键决策都涉及两种选择，一种是提供较低回报的容易的东西，另一种是如果我们成功了，提供巨大回报的困难的东西。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。从研究健康志愿者在实验室游戏中的决策过程中可以获得许多有用的信息，但通常很难确定观察到的大脑活动和选择模式之间的关系是否表明大脑区域导致了某人的特定行为，或者只是与行为有关。通过将这些游戏转化为非人类动物的行为任务，如实验室大鼠，就有可能直接测试大脑区域和决策之间因果关系的强度，因为有可能以令人难以置信的精度和控制力暂时关闭特定大脑区域的神经活动。此外，通过给老鼠服用不同的药物，如纯化形式的大麻，并评估这些化合物是否真的改变认知，以及在何种时间尺度上，可以确定参与决策的是哪种大脑化学物质。这些影响是立即出现的吗？如果反复给药，它们会发生什么变化？*为了试图回答这些问题，我们开发了大鼠认知努力任务(RCET)。在这项任务中，老鼠选择是执行一项需要注意的任务，在这项任务中，它们必须正确地辨认出非常短暂的光刺激，还是执行一项更容易的任务，在这项任务中，光打开的时间更长，因此更容易定位。正确地执行更困难的选项会带来更大的回报。有趣的是，动物在选择更难测试的程度上存在显著的个体差异，导致动物被归类为“工人”或“懒汉”。这种分类与动物进行艰难或简单试验的能力无关，即工人和懒惰的人都同样擅长检测视觉目标，无论这有多难。因此，似乎施加认知努力的意愿与执行更费力的任务的能力是不同的，而且可以不同。我们现在想用这个行为游戏让大鼠弄清楚哪些大脑区域和大脑化学物质调节决策，以及哪些改变工作意愿的药物实际上会对大脑内的神经元产生行为影响(它们是激活特定的大脑区域，还是减少细胞间的交流？)从长远来看，我们想知道是什么让一些老鼠自然而然地更有可能选择更难、但更有回报的选择，而另一些老鼠则想要“偷懒”。这些都是这个研究项目的目标。