Sex differences in exploration-exploitation strategies during home-cage decision making

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Biology
• Animal Cognition

Background:

• The exploration-exploitation trade-off is crucial for decision-making and is implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders.
• While sex differences in this balance exist, their underlying biological mechanisms are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively assess sex differences in the exploration-exploitation trade-off using a mouse model.
• To investigate how these sex differences influence foraging behavior in both stable and uncertain environments.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Feeding Experimentation Device 3 (FED3) to test 74 male and 62 female mice on operant foraging tasks over multiple days.
• Assessed win-stay behavior, pellet intake, and foraging accuracy in deterministic and probabilistic reward environments.
• Employed behavioral modeling to analyze the adaptive value of different strategies.

Main Results:

• Male mice consistently displayed higher win-stay behavior (exploitation) than females across tasks, a modest but statistically significant difference.
• No significant sex differences were found in overall pellet intake, suggesting hunger was not a confounding factor.
• While males' higher win-stay behavior improved accuracy in deterministic tasks, it did not confer an advantage in probabilistic tasks.

Conclusions:

• Male and female mice exhibit subtle yet significant differences in their exploration-exploitation balance.
• These sex-based behavioral differences can lead to differential foraging success depending on environmental predictability.
• Understanding these sex differences may offer insights into the neurobiological underpinnings of decision-making and its dysregulation.