Abstract
Behavioral flexibility, the ability to modify behavior according to changing conditions, is essential to optimize decision-making. Deficits in behavioral flexibility that persist into adulthood are one consequence of adolescent alcohol exposure, and another is decreased functional connectivity in brain structures involved in decision-making; however, a link between these two outcomes has not been established. We assessed effects of adolescent alcohol and sex on both Pavlovian and instrumental behaviors and resting-state functional connectivity MRI in adult animals to determine associations between behavioral flexibility and resting-state functional connectivity. Alcohol exposure impaired attentional set reversals and decreased functional connectivity among cortical and subcortical regions-of-interest that underlie flexible behavior. Moreover, mediation analyses indicated that adolescent alcohol-induced reductions in functional connectivity within a subnetwork of affected brain regions statistically mediated errors committed during reversal learning. These results provide a novel link between persistent reductions in brain functional connectivity and deficits in behavioral flexibility resulting from adolescent alcohol exposure.
Highlights
You are heading to dinner at a place near home
Lever-directed behaviors included the number of lever presses, latency to press the lever within trials, and probability of pressing the lever within sessions
To investigate neural contributions to behavioral flexibility, we chose a network analysis approach over methods that focus on discrete brain regions
Summary
You are heading to dinner at a place near home. Halfway there, it starts raining, and you duck under a shelter. You consider whether you should go back home for an umbrella, wait a few minutes for the rain to stop, or just keep walking to dinner. A crucial element of decision-making is flexibility, which implies the ability to adjust behavior in response to both environmental demands and personal factors (Luna, 2009; Diamond, 2013). This process requires complementary psychological functions like inhibitory control and working memory, among other components of executive function (Diamond, 2013). There has been a dominant interest in the role of the prefrontal cortex in executive
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