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Social Threat-Safety Test Uncovers Psychosocial Stress-Related Phenotypes
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Risk assessment in man and mouse.

Fuat Balci1, David Freestone, Charles R Gallistel

  • 1Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020, USA. fbalci@princeton.edu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|February 4, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Humans and mice effectively assess risks in nonverbal tasks, accurately calculating optimal switch times for rewards. This suggests a strong innate capacity for risk assessment in both species, particularly mice, enabling genetic studies.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Animal Behavior

Background:

  • Decision-making under uncertainty is a fundamental cognitive process.
  • Understanding risk assessment in non-human animals provides insights into conserved neural mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how humans and mice assess uncertainty and make optimal decisions in a reward-based task.
  • To explore the neurobiological basis of risk assessment by examining mouse behavior.

Main Methods:

  • A nonverbal task involving anticipation of reward location with variable latencies.
  • Subjects (human and mouse) estimated exogenous and endogenous uncertainty to compute optimal switch latencies.
  • Behavioral data analyzed for accuracy and speed of optimal decision-making.

Main Results:

  • Both humans and mice accurately assessed trial-based probabilities (exogenous uncertainty) and duration estimates (endogenous uncertainty).
  • Subjects rapidly computed and acted upon the optimal target latency for switching locations.
  • Behavior demonstrated near-optimal risk assessment without explicit verbal instruction.

Conclusions:

  • Humans and mice exhibit sophisticated, near-optimal risk assessment capabilities in nonverbal settings.
  • The well-developed risk assessment capacity in mice offers a valuable model for genetic research into its underlying neurobiology.