Tools in motivational research

Question 1

Which task is used for stimulus response learning in rats?

Answer 1

Go-NoGo task

Question 2

What are 3 important points when you want a rat to perform the go-nogo task?

Answer 2

• Reverse their day-night rhythm
• Food restriction or deprivation
• Weight control everyday

Question 3

What will be the effect on the rat in food deprivation and food restriction?

Answer 3

• Deprivation: Makes the rat more stressful, but more motivated during tasks, which gives more variation in task performance
• Restriction: Stable performance from day to day, rat can earn extra food

Question 4

Why is habituation important for an animal to learn a task?

Answer 4

It reduces stress

Question 5

What is it called when you teach animals a task in small steps, coupling response formation to stimulus?

Answer 5

Shaping

Question 6

What are 2 important point during shaping?

Answer 6

• There is something to earn (food) when the animal performes the task the right way
• Build on the initial response when the animal has earned something –> introduce the levers

Question 7

How do you cause goal-directed behaviour in animals?

Answer 7

By reinforcing the response when a stimuli is represented

Question 8

When wanting to learn a valid cuelight stimuli response, how can this be intergrated during shaping?

Answer 8

First add a cuelight above the lever»which turns on the food light» which triggers nosepoke»food

Add foot shock to left or right lever to disencourage the animal to go to a certain cuelight

Question 9

After shapping, how do you make an animal ready for the complete task?

Answer 9

• Sessions until maximum performance
• Then additional number of sessions
• Then the manipulation

Question 10

What is TASC?

Answer 10

TAsk Spanning Correlate which relates to behavioral sequence using tetrodes and develops in synchrony with instrumental learning

Question 11

What does TASC show about information processing in the prefrontal cortex?

Answer 11

• TASC shows a goald-directed action sequence which is learning related but also reward, motor and sensory related indepenedent of learning
  –> indicates parallel processing of multiple streams of information

Question 12

How can we now if information from the prefrontal cortex transferred to the accumbens during instrumental learning?

Answer 12

By looking at disconnection lesions, neurophysiology, cross correlation analysis

Question 13

What is Pearsons correlation coefficient used for?

Answer 13

It is a measure of firing synchrony

Question 14

What is a possible confound when analysing Functional Connectivity during task reversals?

Answer 14

Behaviour changes during task switch, so functional connectivity has to be considered during intertrial intervals

Question 15

What does disconnections strategy show when looking at MPFC-ACB interactions during reversl learning?

Answer 15

• Output is important –> when strategy is not there, there is no Nu.Acc.
• When there is strategy + its valid, there is prefrontal +Nu.Acc.

Question 16

Where in the behavioral correlations do you have to look to see if the strategy is valid?

Answer 16

Look before the reward delivery, so before 0 seconds

Question 17

What do the electrophysiology results show about mPFC-ACB?

Answer 17

• Firing activity in PFC and ACB correlates to motor activity, CS-Light illumination, reward prediction and reward delivery
• In ACB, correlatess of instrumental action were found. In general, mPFC and ACB process rather similar types of information in the Go-NoGo task.
• Correlated firing in ACB-PFC neuronal pairs seems so be more susceptible to task changes than between ACB neurons

Question 18

What are the conclusions from the mPFC-ACB results?

Answer 18

• Interactions between PFC and ACB play a crucial role in the formation of complex stimulus-response-reinforcer associations
• Changes in the neuronal activity within the PFC and the ACB and the modifications in the interactions between PFC and ACB could promote the development of cognitive-motor sets, including adjustment of resources for directing attention, motor planning and working memory.