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Sensitivity to cognitive effort mediates psychostimulant effects on a novel rodent cost/benefit decision-making task.

ABSTRACT: Amotivational states and insufficient recruitment of mental effort have been observed in a variety of clinical populations, including depression, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Previous rodent models of effort-based decision making have utilized physical costs whereas human studies of effort are primarily cognitive in nature, and it is unclear whether the two types of effortful decision making are underpinned by the same neurobiological processes. We therefore designed a novel rat cognitive effort task (rCET) based on the 5-choice serial reaction time task, a well-validated measure of attention and impulsivity. Within each trial of the rCET, rats are given the choice between an easy or hard visuospatial discrimination, and successful hard trials are rewarded with double the number of sugar pellets. Similar to previous human studies, stable individual variation in choice behavior was observed, with 'workers' choosing hard trials significantly more than their 'slacker' counterparts. Whereas workers 'slacked off' in response to administration of amphetamine and caffeine, slackers 'worked harder' under amphetamine, but not caffeine. Conversely, these stimulants increased motor impulsivity in all animals. Ethanol did not affect animals' choice but invigorated behavior. In sum, we have shown for the first time that rats are differentially sensitive to cognitive effort when making decisions, independent of other processes such as impulsivity, and these baseline differences can influence the cognitive response to psychostimulants. Such findings could inform our understanding of impairments in effort-based decision making and contribute to treatment development.

SUBMITTER: Cocker PJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3376315 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sensitivity to cognitive effort mediates psychostimulant effects on a novel rodent cost/benefit decision-making task.

Cocker Paul J PJ Hosking Jay G JG Benoit James J Winstanley Catharine A CA

Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 20120328 8

Amotivational states and insufficient recruitment of mental effort have been observed in a variety of clinical populations, including depression, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Previous rodent models of effort-based decision making have utilized physical costs whereas human studies of effort are primarily cognitive in nature, and it is unclear whether the two types of effortful decision making are underpinned by the same neur ...[more]

PMID: 22453140

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Project description:Value-based decision-making involves trading off the cost associated with an action against its expected reward. Research has shown that both physical and mental effort constitute such subjective costs, biasing choices away from effortful actions, and discounting the value of obtained rewards. Facing conflicts between competing action alternatives is considered aversive, as recruiting cognitive control to overcome conflict is effortful. Moreover, engaging control to proactively suppress irrelevant information that could conflict with task-relevant information would presumably also be cognitively costly. Yet, it remains unclear whether the cognitive control demands involved in preventing and resolving conflict also constitute costs in value-based decisions. The present study investigated this question by embedding irrelevant distractors (flanker arrows) within a reversal-learning task, with intermixed free and instructed trials. Results showed that participants learned to adapt their free choices to maximize rewards, but were nevertheless biased to follow the suggestions of irrelevant distractors. Thus, the perceived cost of investing cognitive control to suppress an external suggestion could sometimes trump internal value representations. By adapting computational models of reinforcement learning, we assessed the influence of conflict at both the decision and learning stages. Modelling the decision showed that free choices were more biased when participants were less sure about which action was more rewarding. This supports the hypothesis that the costs linked to conflict management were traded off against expected rewards. During the learning phase, we found that learning rates were reduced in instructed, relative to free, choices. Learning rates were further reduced by conflict between an instruction and subjective action values, whereas learning was not robustly influenced by conflict between one's actions and external distractors. Our results show that the subjective cognitive control costs linked to conflict factor into value-based decision-making, and highlight that different types of conflict may have different effects on learning about action outcomes.

Project description:ImportanceMotivational impairments in schizophrenia are by definition associated with poor outcome. It is postulated that the reduction of goal-directed behavior arises from abnormal trade-offs between rewards and efforts.ObjectiveTo examine whether schizophrenia is associated with impairments in effort-cost decision-making.Data sourcesFor this systematic review and meta-analysis, the PubMed, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases were searched from inception to July 2022 for studies that investigated effort-cost decision-making in schizophrenia. Search terms included effort, cost, and schizophrenia.Study selectionConsensual criteria for inclusion were peer-reviewed studies published in English that used a computerized effort-cost decision-making behavioral paradigm and compared individuals with schizophrenia with control individuals.Data extraction and synthesisThe Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses reporting guideline was used for abstracting data. Data were extracted independently by 2 authors and then pooled using random-effects sizes and bayesian approaches.Main outcomes and measuresThe main outcomes were performance on effort-cost decision-making tasks requiring an effort-reward trade-off, measured by Hedges g effect size. Effects of moderators were tested with meta-regressions and subgroup analyses.ResultsTwenty studies involving 1503 participants were included: 837 individuals with schizophrenia (541 [64.6%] male; mean [SD] age, 35.89 [6.70] years) and 666 control individuals without schizophrenia (360 [54.1%] male; mean [SD] age, 34.16 [5.92] years). Participants with schizophrenia had significantly reduced willingness to expend effort for rewards compared with controls (k = 20; effect size, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.30-0.56; P < .001; I2 = 33.1%; Q test P = .08). The magnitude of the deficit was significantly greater for high-reward trials. The severity of negative symptoms was negatively associated with effort-cost decision-making (k = 8; effect size, -0.33; 95% CI, -0.50 to -0.15; P < .001), while participants with a high number of negative symptoms had a significantly larger impairment in effort-cost decision-making (k = 5; effect size, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.10-0.84; P = .01).Conclusions and relevanceIn this systematic review and meta-analysis, schizophrenia was associated with deficits in effort allocation as indexed by effort-cost decision-making tasks. Understanding the cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms driving effort allocation impairments may assist in developing novel interventions.

Project description:Successful decision making in our daily lives requires weighing an option's costs against its associated benefits. The neuromodulator acetylcholine underlies both the etiology and treatment of a number of illnesses in which decision making is perturbed, including Alzheimer's disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and schizophrenia. Nicotine acts on the cholinergic system and has been touted as a cognitive enhancer by both smokers and some researchers for its attention-boosting effects; however, it is unclear whether treatments that have a beneficial effect on attention would also have a beneficial effect on decision making. Here we utilize the rodent Cognitive Effort Task (rCET), wherein animals can choose to allocate greater visuospatial attention for a greater reward, to examine cholinergic contributions to both attentional performance and choice based on attentional demand. Following the establishment of baseline behavior, four drug challenges were administered: nicotine, mecamylamine, scopolamine, and oxotremorine (saline plus three doses for each). As per previous rCET studies, animals were divided by their baseline preferences, with "worker" rats choosing high-effort/high-reward options more than their "slacker" counterparts. Nicotine caused slackers to choose even fewer high-effort trials than at baseline, but had no effect on workers' choice. Despite slackers' decreased willingness to expend effort, nicotine improved their attentional performance on the task. Nicotine also increased measures of motor impulsivity in all animals. In contrast, scopolamine decreased animals' choice of high-effort trials, especially for workers, while oxotremorine decreased motor impulsivity for all animals. In sum, the cholinergic system appears to contribute to decision making, and in part these contributions can be understood as a function of individual differences. While nicotine has been considered as a cognitive enhancer, these data suggest that its modest benefits to attention may be coupled with impulsiveness and decreased willingness to work hard, especially in individuals who are particularly sensitive to effort costs (i.e. slackers).

Project description:Adaptive behaviour entails the capacity to select actions as a function of their energy cost and expected value and the disruption of this faculty is now viewed as a possible cause of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Indirect evidence points to the involvement of the subthalamic nucleus-the most common target for deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease-in cost-benefit computation. However, this putative function appears at odds with the current view that the subthalamic nucleus is important for adjusting behaviour to conflict. Here we tested these contrasting hypotheses by recording the neuronal activity of the subthalamic nucleus of patients with Parkinson's disease during an effort-based decision task. Local field potentials were recorded from the subthalamic nucleus of 12 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (mean age 63.8 years ± 6.8; mean disease duration 9.4 years ± 2.5) both OFF and ON levodopa while they had to decide whether to engage in an effort task based on the level of effort required and the value of the reward promised in return. The data were analysed using generalized linear mixed models and cluster-based permutation methods. Behaviourally, the probability of trial acceptance increased with the reward value and decreased with the required effort level. Dopamine replacement therapy increased the rate of acceptance for efforts associated with low rewards. When recording the subthalamic nucleus activity, we found a clear neural response to both reward and effort cues in the 1-10 Hz range. In addition these responses were informative of the subjective value of reward and level of effort rather than their actual quantities, such that they were predictive of the participant's decisions. OFF levodopa, this link with acceptance was weakened. Finally, we found that these responses did not index conflict, as they did not vary as a function of the distance from indifference in the acceptance decision. These findings show that low-frequency neuronal activity in the subthalamic nucleus may encode the information required to make cost-benefit comparisons, rather than signal conflict. The link between these neural responses and behaviour was stronger under dopamine replacement therapy. Our findings are consistent with the view that Parkinson's disease symptoms may be caused by a disruption of the processes involved in balancing the value of actions with their associated effort cost.

Dataset Information

Sensitivity to cognitive effort mediates psychostimulant effects on a novel rodent cost/benefit decision-making task.

Publications

Sensitivity to cognitive effort mediates psychostimulant effects on a novel rodent cost/benefit decision-making task.

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