PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
The ubiquity, importance, and sophistication of foraging behavior makes it an ideal platform for studying naturalistic decision making in animals. We developed a spatial patch-foraging task for rats, in which subjects chose how long to remain in one foraging patch as the rate of food earnings steadily decreased. The cost of seeking out a new location was varied across sessions. The behavioral task was designed to mimic the structure of natural foraging problems, where distinct spatial locations are associated with different reward statistics, and decisions require navigation and movement through space. Male and female Long-Evans rats generally followed the predictions of theoretical models of foraging, albeit with a consistent tendency to persist with patches for too long compared to behavioral strategies that maximize food intake rate. The tendency to choose overly-long patch residence times was stronger in male rats. We also observed sex differences in locomotion as rats performed the task, but these differences in movement only partially accounted for the differences in patch residence durations observed between male and female rats. Together, these results suggest a nuanced relationship between movement, sex, and foraging decisions.
摘要：
无处不在，重要性,觅食行为的复杂性使其成为研究动物自然主义决策的理想平台。我们为大鼠开发了一种空间补片觅食任务，其中受试者选择在一个觅食斑块中停留多长时间，因为食物收益率稳步下降。寻找新地点的成本因会议而异。行为任务旨在模仿自然觅食问题的结构，不同的空间位置与不同的奖励统计相关联，决策需要在空间中导航和移动。雄性和雌性Long-Evans大鼠通常遵循觅食理论模型的预测，尽管与最大化食物摄入率的行为策略相比，坚持使用贴片太长时间的趋势一致。在雄性大鼠中，选择过长的贴片停留时间的趋势更强。我们还观察到大鼠执行任务时运动的性别差异，但是这些运动差异仅部分解释了雄性和雌性大鼠之间观察到的贴片停留时间的差异。一起,这些结果表明运动之间存在微妙的关系，性别,和觅食决定。
