背景:大鼠认知努力任务(rCET),一种认知而不是体力劳动的啮齿动物模型,要求动物在简单或困难的视觉空间区分之间做出选择,正确的艰难选择会得到更高的回报。就像人类一样,选择行为存在稳定的个体差异。在以前的报告中,根据动物对更难选择的平均偏好,将动物分为两组-工人和懒汉。尽管这些群体对药理学挑战的反应不同,使用该标准进行分组的理由并不可靠.
方法:我们整理了来自多个进行rCET的雄性和雌性大鼠队列的实验数据,并使用了基于模型的框架,将漂移扩散建模与聚类分析相结合,以确定选择行为变化的决策过程。
结果:我们验证了工人和懒散者是统计学上不同的组,但也发现了不同的组内概况。这些亚组在注意阶段表现出可分离的表现,在选择过程中与不同的决策档案相联系。使用此基于模型的框架对以前的药理学数据进行重新分析,结果表明,血清素能药物的作用可以通过决策边界和非决策时间的变化来解释。而东pol碱的作用是由决策起点和证据积累率的变化驱动的。
结论:建模揭示了与认知努力成本相关的决策过程,以及这些在个人之间的差异。药物数据的重新分析提供了对不同神经递质系统影响认知努力注意力和决策过程的机制的洞察力。与多种精神疾病有关。
BACKGROUND: The rat cognitive effort task (rCET), a rodent model of cognitive rather than physical effort, requires animals to choose between an easy or hard visuospatial discrimination, with a correct hard choice more highly rewarded. Like in humans, there is stable individual variation in choice behavior. In previous reports, animals were divided into two groups-workers and slackers-based on their mean preference for the harder option. Although these groups differed in their response to pharmacological challenges, the rationale for using this criterion for grouping was not robust.
METHODS: We collated experimental data from multiple cohorts of male and female rats performing the rCET and used a model-based framework combining drift diffusion modeling with cluster analysis to identify the decision-making processes underlying variation in choice behavior.
RESULTS: We verified that workers and slackers are statistically different groups but also found distinct intra-group profiles. These subgroups exhibited dissociable performance during the attentional phase, linked to distinct decision-making profiles during choice. Reanalysis of previous pharmacology data using this model-based framework showed that serotonergic drug effects were explained by changes in decision boundaries and non-decision times, while scopolamine\'s effects were driven by changes in decision starting points and rates of evidence accumulation.
CONCLUSIONS: Modeling revealed the decision-making processes that are associated with cognitive effort costs, and how these differ across individuals. Reanalysis of drug data provided insight into the mechanisms through which different neurotransmitter systems impact cognitively effortful attention and decision-making processes, with relevance to multiple psychiatric disorders.