Cued Rat Gambling Task

Abstract

The ability of salient cues to serve as powerful motivators has long been recognized in models of drug addiction, but little has been done to investigate their effects on complex decision making. The Cued rat Gambling Task (CrGT) is an operant behavioural task which pairs salient, audiovisual cues with the delivery of sucrose pellet rewards on complex schedules of reinforcement that involve both sugar pellet 'wins' and timeout penalty 'losses'. The task was designed with the intention of providing insight into the influence of such cues on decision making in a manner that models human gambling.

Keywords: Addiction; Animal models; Cues; Decision making; Gambling; Impulsivity.