Reward Choice Research Articles

The outcome-representation learning model: impairments in decision-making in adolescents with excess weight

Impairments in decision-making have been suggested as a predisposing factor to obesity development. Individuals with excess weight display riskier decisions than normal weight people. Furthermore, adolescence is a period of life in which risky behavior may increase. We aimed to investigate decision making applying the Outcome-Representation-Learning (ORL) model to the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in adolescents with excess weight. Twenty-nine excess weight and twenty-eight normal weight adolescents, classified according to their age-adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentile, participated in the study. Decision-making was measured using the IGT. A Bayesian computational ORL model was applied to assess reward learning, punishment learning, forgetfulness, win perseverance and deck perseverance. The IGT net score was lower in excess weight than normal weight adolescents (β = 2.85; p < .027). Reward learning (95% HDI [0.011, 0.232]) was higher, while forgetfulness (95% HDI [− 0.711, − 0.181]) and deck perseverance (95% HDI [− 3.349, − 0.203]) were lower, in excess weight than normal weight adolescents. Excess weight adolescents seemed better at learning the most rewarding choices and showed a random strategy based on reward and novelty seeking. Consequently, excess weight adolescents made more disadvantageous selections, and performed worse in the IGT.

Effect of social instability stress in adolescence or adulthood on sensitivity to sucrose concentration in a social context in male and female Long-Evans rats.

Although there is evidence of sex differences in responding to social stress, and that age when stressed matters, females are understudied and adult-stress comparisons are few. Here, we investigated stress effects on reward sensitivity by examining rats' choice of social versus sucrose reward in a continuous spatial allocation design. We predicted social instability stress (SS) in adolescence would result in greater social discounting (spend less time near a novel peer when provided access to sucrose) relative to nonstressed controls (CTLs) and relative to SS in adulthood. All increased sucrose intake as the concentration increased, with no evidence of social discounting. SS males tested soon after the stress had a decrease in intake, whereas those tested long after had an increase in both time near the peer and in intake. CTL and SS females did not differ in intake, although their dose-response curves differed when tested soon after the SS. We also tested whether SS changed the stimulus value of the rat as a social peer; when tested in triads, CTL rats spent similar time in interaction with SS versus CTL rats. In sum, effects of SS on reward sensitivity were greater for males irrespective of administered in adolescence versus adulthood.

Room for a Specialist?

When the Associate Specialist grade shut in 2008 it left an untenable situation in which some Specialty Doctors were providing the most senior levels of care for patients without recognition of that seniority. Hence in 2021, the Specialist Grade was created as a new national grade for senior specialist and specialty (SAS) doctors. The post provides autonomous working and recognition of seniority for SAS doctors. Becoming a Specialist Grade doctor is not an automatic career progression and must be applied for when a position is created by the employer. The Specialist Grade route has potential to be an alternative but equally rewarding career choice to traditional training.

Insula lesions reduce stimulus-driven control of behavior during odor-guided decision-making and autoshaping

The insula has become a significant brain region in the study of both normal and impaired behavior and decision-making and has emerged as an important contributor to drug addiction. Consistent with this literature, in a previous study, we found that neural signals in rat insula encode anticipation and contextual global reward value during performance of an odor-guided delay/size choice task, and that these signals are disrupted by prior cocaine self-administration. Still, it is unknown if insula is critical for performance of this task under normal circumstances. Here, we sought to elucidate the functional role of these signals by lesioning the same region of anterior insula we previously recorded from. In addition to examining behavior during decision-making, we characterized behavior during autoshaping to further assess insula’s role in behavior. We found insula damage resulted in reduced accuracy and faster reaction times, without affecting rats’ choice of high-value reward, and that insula lesions reduced sign-tracking behavior. These results suggest that insula contributes to our odor-guided delay/size choice task via mechanisms that impact the control that environmental stimuli have on behavior.

Enhancing employee creativity: Effects of choice, rewards and personality.

We conducted a quasi-experimental field study of an organization-wide suggestion program and a follow-up laboratory experiment to examine the effects of choice of rewards on employee creativity. As hypothesized, the results of both studies showed that choice had positive, significant effects on the number of creative ideas employees generated and the creativity level of those ideas. Results of the quasi-experiment also showed that creative self-efficacy (CSE) mediated the effects of reward choice. Two general categories of rewards were examined in our studies-those that directly benefited the idea generator (Self) and those that directly benefited charities (Other). We explored the effects of these reward categories on employee creativity and whether employee creative personality interacted with the reward categories to affect employee creativity. Results showed that the reward categories did not have a significant impact on employee creativity. However, both studies demonstrated that in the Other reward condition, employees with a creative personality produced ideas higher in creativity than those with a less creative personality. The quasi-experiment also showed that CSE mediated the effects of the Reward × Creative Personality interaction. We discussed the implications of these results for the future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of training future optometrists in community health centers

Abstract Community health centers are a rewarding and rich career choice for future optometrists. As primary eye care providers, optometrists in these multi-disciplinary settings have the potential to make significant and lasting impacts on patients of underserved populations, to increase awareness surrounding cultural diversity and impact on healthcare, and to advocate for healthcare equity. This article discusses why community health centers can be a career destination for current and prospective optometry students, and provides examples of making an impact as a health center optometrist.

A role for reward valuation in the serotonergic modulation of impulsivity

RationaleImpulsive behavior is a deleterious component of a number of mental health disorders but has few targeted pharmacotherapies. One contributing factor to the difficulty in understanding the neural substrates of disordered impulsivity is the diverse presentations of impulsive behavior. Defining the behavioral and cognitive processes which contribute to different subtypes of impulsivity is important for understanding the neural underpinnings of dysregulated impulsive behavior.MethodsUsing a mouse model for disordered impulsivity, our goal was to identify behavioral and cognitive processes that are associated with increased impulsivity. Specifically, we were interested in the facets of impulsivity modulated by serotonin signaling. We used mice lacking the serotonin 1B receptor (5-HT1BR) and measured different types of impulsivity as well as goal-directed responding, extinction, habitual-like behavior, cue reactivity, and reward reactivity.ResultsMice lacking expression of 5-HT1BR had increased levels of impulsive action, goal-directed responding, and motivation, with no differences seen in rate of extinction, development of habitual behavior, delay discounting, or effort-based discounting. Interestingly, mice lacking 5-HT1BR expression also showed an overall increase in the choice of higher value rewards, increased hedonic responses to sweet rewards, and responded more for cues that predict reward. We developed a novel paradigm to demonstrate that increasing anticipated reward value could directly increase impulsive action. Furthermore, we found that 5-HT1BR KO-induced impulsivity could be ameliorated by decreasing the reward value relative to controls, suggesting that the increased 5-HT1BR-associated impulsive action may be a result of increased reward valuation.ConclusionsTaken together, these data show that the effects of serotonin on impulsive action are mediated through the modulation of hedonic value, which may alter the reward representations that motivate action. Overall, this data supports a role for reward value as an important substrate in impulsive action which may drive clinically relevant increases in impulsivity.

Lateral Habenula Inactivation Alters Willingness to Exert Physical Effort Using a Maze Task in Rats.

An impairment in willingness to exert physical effort in daily activities is a noted aspect of several psychiatric conditions. Previous studies have supported an important role for the lateral habenula (LHb) in dynamic decision-making, including decisions associated with discounting costly high value rewards. It is unknown whether a willingness to exert physical effort to obtain higher rewards is also mediated by the LHb. It also remains unclear whether the LHb is critical to monitoring the task contingencies generally as they change, or whether it also mediates choices in otherwise static reward environments. The present study indicates that the LHb might have an integrative role in effort-based decision-making even when no alterations in choice contingencies occur. Specifically, pharmacological inactivation of the LHb showed differences in motivational behavior by reducing choices for the high effort (30cm barrier) high reward (2 pellets) choice versus the low effort (0 cm) low reward (1 pellet) choice. In sessions where the barrier was removed, rats demonstrated a similar preference for the high reward arm under both control and LHb inactivation. Further, no differences were observed when accounting for sex as a biological variable. These results support that effort to receive a high-value reward is considered on a trial-by-trial basis and the LHb is part of the circuit responsible for integrating this information during decision-making. Therefore, it is likely that previously observed changes in the LHb may be a key contributor to changes in a willingness to exert effort in psychiatric conditions.

Relationship between BMI and alcohol consumption levels in decision making

BackgroundDecision-making deficits in obesity and alcohol use disorder (AUD) may contribute to the choice of immediate rewards despite their long-term deleterious consequences.MethodsGambling task functional MRI in Human connectome project (HCP) dataset was used to investigate neural activation differences associated with reward or punishment (a key component of decision-making behavior) in 418 individuals with obesity (high BMI) and without obesity (lean BMI) and either at high (HR) or low (LR) risk of AUD based on their alcohol drinking levels.ResultsInteraction between BMI and alcohol drinking was seen in regions of the default mode network (DMN) and those implicated in self-related processing, memory, and salience attribution. ObesityHR relative to obesityLR also recruited DMN along with primary motor and regions implicated in inattention, negative perception, and uncertain choices, which might facilitate impulsive choices in obesityHR. Furthermore, obesityHR compared to leanHR/leanLR also demonstrated heightened activation in DMN and regions implicated in uncertain decisions.ConclusionsThese results suggest that BMI is an independent variable from that of alcohol drinking levels in neural processing of gambling tasks. Moreover, leanLR relative to leanHR, showed increased activation in motor regions [precentral and superior frontal gyrus] suggestive of worse executive function from excessive alcohol use. Delayed discounting measures failed to distinguish between obesity and high alcohol drinking levels, which as for gambling task results suggests independent negative effects of obesity and chronic alcohol drinking on decision-making. These findings highlight distinct associations of obesity and high-risk alcohol drinking with two key constituents of decision-making behavior.

Blockade of the orexin 1 receptors in the nucleus accumbens’ shell reversed the reduction effect of olanzapine on motivation for positive reinforcers

Effort-based choice of high reward requires one to decide how much effort to expend for a certain amount of reward. Orexin is a crucial neuropeptide in the physiological aspect especially a variety of affective and cognitive processes. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a region of the neural system that serves effort-related high reward choices andthe Orexin 1 receptor (OX1R) is distributed extensively throughout the nucleus accumbens shell (AcbS). Olanzapine (OLZ), a typical antipsychotic drug, has a high affinity to D2 as an antagonist, and also partial agonistic-like action at D2 receptors has been reported. We examined the interaction of OLZ with the orexinergic receptor 1 in AcbS on effort- related high reward choice when two goal arms were different in the amount of accessible reward. The animals had to pass the barrier for receiving a high reward in one arm (HRA) or obtain a low reward in the other arm without any cost. Before surgery, all animals were selecting the HRA on almost every trial.During test days, the rats received local injections of either DMSO 20% /0.5 µl, as vehicle or SB334867 (30, 100, 300 nM/0.5 µl), as selective OX1R antagonist, within the AcbS. Other group received OLZ (32 µM/0.5 µl DMSO20%) / vehicle alone or 5 min after administration of SB334867 (300 nM/0.5 µl). The results showed that administration of OLZ in the AcbS alters rat’s preference for high reward. On the other hand, blocked of the OX1R (300 nM/0.5 µl) in this region could reverse the effect of OLZ, however, administration of the OX1R antagonists alone in the AcbS led to decreasing rat's preference for high reward. This result indicates that the orexin-1 antagonist might affect some effects of antipsychotic drugs.

Development of a cortical delay discounting assay: a potential biomarker of externalizing disorders.

People who tend to impulsively choose smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later rewards are at increased risk for addiction and psychiatric disorders. A neurobiological measure of the tendency to overvalue immediate gratification could facilitate the study of individuals who are susceptible to these mental disorders. The objective of this research was to develop a cortical assay of impulsive choice for immediate rewards. A cortex-based assay of impulsive choice was developed using 1105 healthy adults from the Human Connectome Project, and then cross-validated in two independent samples of adults with elevated rates of psychiatric disorders. Study 1: Cortical delay discounting (C-DD) was developed using a multivariate additive model of gray matter thickness across both hemispheres. Higher C-DD corresponded to thinner cortex and greater impulsive choice for immediate rewards. It also predicted cannabis use beyond established risk factors for drug use, including familial substance use, childhood conduct problems, personality traits, and cognitive functioning. Study 2: C-DD replicated the association with delay discounting performance from study 1. Structural equation modeling showed C-DD covaried with symptoms of externalizing, but not internalizing disorders. Study 3: C-DD positively predicted future delay discounting behavior (6-34 months later). Across three studies, a cortical assay of impulsive choice evidenced consistent associations with drug use and delay discounting task performance. It was also uniquely associated with psychiatric disorders that share impulsivity as a core feature. Together, findings support the utility of C-DD as a neurobiological assay of impulsive decision-making and a possible biomarker of externalizing disorders.

A bidirectional corticoamygdala circuit for the encoding and retrieval of detailed reward memories.

Adaptive reward-related decision making often requires accurate and detailed representation of potential available rewards. Environmental reward-predictive stimuli can facilitate these representations, allowing one to infer which specific rewards might be available and choose accordingly. This process relies on encoded relationships between the cues and the sensory-specific details of the rewards they predict. Here, we interrogated the function of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and its interaction with the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) in the ability to learn such stimulus-outcome associations and use these memories to guide decision making. Using optical recording and inhibition approaches, Pavlovian cue-reward conditioning, and the outcome-selective Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) test in male rats, we found that the BLA is robustly activated at the time of stimulus-outcome learning and that this activity is necessary for sensory-specific stimulus-outcome memories to be encoded, so they can subsequently influence reward choices. Direct input from the lOFC was found to support the BLA in this function. Based on prior work, activity in BLA projections back to the lOFC was known to support the use of stimulus-outcome memories to influence decision making. By multiplexing optogenetic and chemogenetic inhibition we performed a serial circuit disconnection and found that the lOFC→BLA and BLA→lOFC pathways form a functional circuit regulating the encoding (lOFC→BLA) and subsequent use (BLA→lOFC) of the stimulus-dependent, sensory-specific reward memories that are critical for adaptive, appetitive decision making.

Discussing the Role of Entrepreneurial Universities in COVID-19 Era in the Middle East

Research Question: This conceptual research explores the role that academic entrepreneurship can play in Middle Eastern countries in addressing the effects of COVID-19 pandemic in the region. Motivation: Entrepreneurial universities are pivotal in contemporary economic systems due to their significant contributions in innovation efforts. Part of their mission is seen in the commercialization of their scientific knowledge through the creation of spin-offs (Cvijic et al., 2019; O'shea et al., 2005; Rodrigues et al., 2019). The challenges and constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated the importance of coordinating the efforts of all parties including those of entrepreneurial universities in order to develop vaccines and generate healthcare solutions which could be patented and commercialized afterwards. Hence, this paper identifies the factors which can reinforce the entrepreneurial insertion of universities and increase their capacity in supporting collective efforts aiming at combatting the COVID-19 aftermath. Idea: Based on a review of recent literature, the purpose of this conceptual study is twofold: identify the predictors and the success factors of academic entrepreneurship; and argue for research propositions that could guide future empirical research. In addition, this paper provides insights into the current evolution of the entrepreneurial experiences of Middle Eastern universities. Data: This explorative research was based on an extensive literature review of the core aspects relevant to academic entrepreneurship. Recent references published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals with the primary focus on the Middle East or other developing economies were targeted in order to build up the conceptual model revolving around nine research propositions. Tools: Selected references were reviewed and categorized around the mainstream themes identified by the authors, i.e., impact of entrepreneurial universities, antecedents of academic entrepreneurship, and its success factors. For each block, several research propositions were derived and presented. Findings: The literature review findings argue for the potential role that specific factors can play in promoting the entrepreneurial engagement of Middle Eastern universities, namely the national institutional framework, an easy access to funding sources, the existence of interrelations with local organizations and the quality of the university’s organizational infrastructure. The conceptual framework assumes also that the performance of entrepreneurial universities would depend on the number and quality of relationships with the industry, the support of venture capitalists and the intensity of their entrepreneurial and market orientations. Contribution: This research contributes essentially in underlining the growing importance of academic entrepreneurship and how it can be a rewarding choice for Middle Eastern policy makers.

Single-Dimensional Human Brain Signals for Two-Dimensional Economic Choice Options.

Rewarding choice options typically contain multiple components, but neural signals in single brain voxels are scalar and primarily vary up or down. In a previous study, we had designed reward bundles that contained the same two milkshakes with independently set amounts; we had used psychophysics and rigorous economic concepts to estimate two-dimensional choice indifference curves (ICs) that represented revealed stochastic preferences for these bundles in a systematic, integrated manner. All bundles on the same ICs were equally revealed preferred (and thus had same utility, as inferred from choice indifference); bundles on higher ICs (higher utility) were preferred to bundles on lower ICs (lower utility). In the current study, we used the established behavior for testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We now demonstrate neural responses in reward-related brain structures of human female and male participants, including striatum, midbrain, and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mid-OFC) that followed the characteristic pattern of ICs: similar responses along ICs (same utility despite different bundle composition), but monotonic change across ICs (different utility). Thus, these brain structures integrated multiple reward components into a scalar signal, well beyond the known subjective value coding of single-component rewards.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Rewards have several components, like the taste and size of an apple, but it is unclear how each component contributes to the overall value of the reward. While choice indifference curves (ICs) of economic theory provide behavioral approaches to this question, it is unclear whether brain responses capture the preference and utility integrated from multiple components. We report activations in striatum, midbrain, and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) that follow choice ICs representing behavioral preferences over and above variations of individual reward components. In addition, the concept-driven approach encourages future studies on natural, multicomponent rewards that are prone to irrational choice of normal and brain-damaged individuals.

Q-learning and LSTM based deep active learning strategy for malware defense in industrial IoT applications

Edge devices are extensively used as intermediaries between the device and the service layer in an industrial Internet of things (IIoT) environment. These devices are quite vulnerable to malware attacks. Existing studies have worked on designing complex learning algorithms or deep architectures to accurately classify malware assuming that a sufficient number of labeled examples are provided. In the real world, getting labeled examples is one of the major issues for training any classification algorithm. Recent advances have allowed researchers to use active learning strategies that are trained on a handful of labeled examples to perform the classification task, but they are based on the selection of informative instances. This study integrates the Q-learning characteristics into an active learning framework, which allows the network to either request or predict a label during the training process. We proposed the use of phase space embedding, sparse autoencoder, and LSTM with the action-value function to classify malware applications while using a handful of labeled examples. The network relies on its uncertainty to either request or predict a label. The experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve better accuracy than the supervised learning strategy while using few labeled requests. The results also show that the trained network is resilient to the adversarial attacks, which proves the robustness of the proposed method. Additionally, this study explores the tradeoff between classification accuracy and number of label requests via the choice of rewards and the use of decision-level fusion strategies to boost the classification performance. Furthermore, we also provide a hypothetical framework as an implication of the proposed method.

Scalar Human Brain Responses to Vectorial Economic Choice Options: A Concept-Driven Approach

Rewarding choice options typically contain multiple components, but neural signals in single brain voxels are scalar and primarily vary up or down. In a previous study, we had designed reward bundles that contained the same two milkshakes with independently set amounts; we had used psychophysics and rigorous economic concepts to estimate two-dimensional choice indifference curves (IC) that represented revealed stochastic preferences for these bundles in a systematic, integrated manner. All bundles on the same ICs were equally revealed preferred (and thus had same utility, as inferred from choice indifference); bundles on higher ICs (higher utility) were preferred to bundles on lower ICs (lower utility). In the current study, we used the established behavior for testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We now demonstrate neural responses in reward-related brain structures of human female and male participants, including striatum, midbrain and medial orbitofrontal cortex that followed the characteristic pattern of ICs: similar responses along ICs (same utility despite different bundle composition), but monotonic change across ICs (different utility). Thus, these brain structures integrated multiple reward components into a scalar signal, well beyond the known subjective value coding of single-component rewards.

Strategic take-back programs when consumers have heterogeneous environmental preferences

We look at the strategic introduction of take-back programs (TBPs) which offer consumers a discount on their next purchase (reward) when they drop off previous purchases. In a Hotelling duopoly, consumers are heterogeneous not only in terms of their location on the Hotelling line but also in terms of their recycling preferences. Firms introduce TBPs to obtain a market share advantage (reward effect) and/or to recover the intrinsic value of the recycled units (recycling effect); their choice of the optimal reward balances these two effects: for instance, a firm might be willing to introduce a TBP, even if this means losing money on each recycled unit, in order to prevent the competitor from gaining a too large market share advantage. Comparing the level of TBP uptake at the market equilibrium to the one that maximizes social welfare, we show that a lower or higher TBP uptake can be socially desirable, depending, among other, on the weight that is given to the environmental benefits of TBPs. Several extended producer responsibility policies are discussed in terms of their potential to encourage TBP uptake and their overall impact on social welfare.

Overweight adults are more impulsive than normal weight adults: Evidence from ERPs during a chocolate-related delayed discounting task

Overweight or obesity can be accompanied by abnormalities in executive function and related neural markers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates of food-related decision-making in overweight and normal-weight adults. We used a delayed discounting task (DDT), which requires participants to choose between smaller immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards. In total, 24 overweight adults and 24 normal-weight adults participated; all participants engaged with a food-related DDT, and their responses were measured using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, we take the area under the curve (AUC), number of smaller immediate rewards, and reaction times (RTs) as behavioral indicators of DDT. AUC is an individual's discounting rate, with smaller AUC reflecting more impulsive decision-making. Number of smaller immediate rewards also reflects impulsivity. For ERPs, N2, reward-related positivity, P3, and late positive component (LPC) were investigated. Behavioral results showed smaller AUC, more choice of smaller immediate rewards, and longer RTs in overweight adults than in normal-weight adults. Neural markers showed that overweight adults elicited greater N2 in larger delayed rewards than in smaller immediate rewards and also elicited greater reward-related positivity than normal-weight adults. Moreover, the P3 and LPC mean amplitudes of overweight adults were greater than those of normal-weight adults. Pearson correlation analysis showed that body mass index (BMI) was positively related to P3 and LPC, while AUC was negatively related to P3. The findings thus suggest that overweight adults are more impulsive than normal-weight adults. Moreover, overweight adults might experience more cognitive conflict before their reaction, and they might allocate more cognitive resources to food-related stimuli and might have higher-order cognitive processes more involved in motivation or emotion regarding food-related stimuli. This is the first study investigating ERP correlates of food-related decision-making in overweight adults, and it enriches the theoretical models by providing neural markers for future study.

Reward Responsiveness and Inhibition Traits Differentially Predict Economic Biases in Gain and Loss Contexts.

Research on economic decision making has revealed specific biases in gain versus loss domains such that risky choice options are overvalued in gain conditions, implying optimism, but undervalued in loss conditions, implying pessimism. Individual differences in motivational traits and affective states have been shown to predict beliefs and behavior in risky decision making, but it is presently unclear which personal characteristics are most predictive of domain-specific biases. To address this gap in the literature, we investigated the relative influence of positive and negative motivational traits (general sensitivity to rewards and punishments) versus affective states (current levels of positive and negative emotions) on beliefs and choice behavior during a risky economic decision task. We also expanded on previous research by examining how the valence of one’s judgment context (positive context tested in Experiment 1, negative context tested in Experiment 2) may determine whether risky choice behavior is more strongly influenced by positive versus negative characteristics. Biases in belief were calculated using an economic decision task that involved estimating the value of risky “stocks” relative to safe “bonds” from experienced outcomes. Experiment 1 used a positive judgment context (likelihood of a “good stock”) while Experiment 2 used a negative judgment context (likelihood of a “bad stock”). Consistent with previous findings, we observed a domain-based bias in beliefs about stock values across experiments, such that participants exhibited optimism in gain domain and pessimism in the loss domain. Experiment 1 further revealed that domain-based bias and suboptimal choice behavior was predicted by trait-level reward sensitivity, while positive affective state (PAS) had a more limited influence on belief bias alone. Under the negative judgment context of Experiment 2, there was a similar relationship between reward sensitivity and choice behavior; however, results revealed a slightly stronger influence of negative affective state (NAS). A subsequent cross-study analysis found sensitivity to rewards was most predictive of domain-based biases. These results suggest that motivational traits – particularly those relating to reward sensitivity – are more consistent predictors of domain-based biases and risky choice behavior than affective states, but their predictive power depends the valence of the decision context.

Top-down control of the medial orbitofrontal cortex to nucleus accumbens core pathway in decisional impulsivity.

Decisional impulsivity is one of the risk factors for occurrence and development of many mental disorders, and that the dysfunctions of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and nucleus accumbens core (NAcC) are at least involved. Although previous studies have shown that the role of OFC as a whole in regulating decision-making impulse behavior is inconsistent, it's still unclear that the roles of the subregions of OFC including their projections to the NAcC in decisional impulsivity. The present study was designed to investigate the roles of OFC subregions, medial OFC (mOFC) and lateral OFC (lOFC) and their projections to the NAcC in decisional impulsivity in free-moving rats. We found that rats with low level of decisional impulsivity (LI) showed higher neuronal activity in both the mOFC and lOFC, and more neurons in mOFC but not lOFC projecting to the NAcC were activated, compared with high level of decisional impulsivity (HI) rats. The mOFC-NAcC projections of LI rats showed stronger information communication in beta and low gamma oscillations in the expected reward choice and delay time windows. Further, specific activation (in HI rats) or inhibition (in LI rats) of the mOFC-NAcC pathway could partly reverse their decisional impulsive behaviors. The findings first demonstrated that the mOFC-NAcC pathway was more important than the lOFC-NAcC pathway to the top-down control in decisional impulsivity, which could be a new neural physiological mechanism for psychiatric disorders associated with decisional impulsivity.