Exposure to uncertainty mediates the effects of traumatic brain injury on probabilistic decision-making in rats

Challenges and opportunities in animal models of gambling-like behavior

“…Of note, this pattern of decision-making was present regardless of whether rats learned the task de novo after injury or had stable patterns prior to injury. In another study, when rats were exposed to variable reinforcement prior to injury, all rats performed suboptimally, similar to effects described in the Environmental section above, and the effects of brain damage were masked [34]. These data suggest that risky decision-making tasks may be efficacious for assessing therapeutics for populations with brain injury, but that interactions with environmental variables (e.g., pre-injury learning) may have considerable effects and should be taken into account when considering translation.…”

“…For instance, a rather simple manipulation examining the effect of age at acquisition of a four-choice gambling task revealed that motor impulsivity was affected by age (PND 70 vs. PND 90), but not choice behavior [35]. Even larger manipulations, such as adolescent administration of methylphenidate (PND 38-57), intermittent ethanol administration (PND [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46], or an acute stressor of maternal deprivation (PND 3) also did not affect risky decision-making (Figure 2C), despite methylphenidate causing an increase in choice impulsivity, alcohol causing a pronounced increase in choice latency, and maternal deprivation causing subtle hippocampal-related deficits [36][37][38]. Despite all of this, some early life manipulations do alter decision-making.…”