Reversal learning in rats (Rattus norvegicus) and pigeons (Columba livia): Qualitative differences in behavioral flexibility.

Behavioral flexibility is the ability of a subject to change its behavior according to contextual cues. In humans, Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) is characterized by repetitive behavior, performed through rigid rituals. This phenomenological observation has led to explore the idea that OCD patients may have diminished behavioral flexibility. To address this question we developed innovative translational approaches across multiple species, including human patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorders, and rodent genetic models of OCD to provide original data in the perspective of enlightening the neurocognitive bases of compulsive behaviors. Behavioral flexibility may be challenged in experimental tasks such as reversal learning paradigms. In these tasks, the subject has to respond to either of two different visual stimuli but only one stimulus is positively rewarded while the other is not. After this first association has been learned, reward contingency are inverted, so that the previously neutral stimulus is now rewarded, while the previously rewarded stimulus is not. Performance in reversal learning is indexed by the number of perseverative errors committed when participants maintain their response towards previously reinforced stimulus in spite of negative reward. Unsurprisingly, this behavioral task has been adapted to mice using various response modalities (T-maze, lever press, nose-poke). Using animal models of compulsive behaviors give much more possibilities to study the deficient functions and their underlying neural basis that could lead to pathological repetitive behaviors. Here we present new behavioral set-ups that we developed in parallel in human (i.e. healthy subjects and OCD patients) and mice (i.e. controls and SAPAP3-KO mice) to study the role of the behavioral flexibility as a possible endophenotype of OCD. We observed that the subjects suffering of compulsive behaviors showed perseverative maladaptive behaviors in these tasks. By comparing the results of a similar task-design in humans and mouse models we will discuss the pertinence of such translational approach to further study the neurocognitive basis of compulsive behaviors.

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Behavioral flexibility in a mouse model for obsessive‐compulsive disorder: Impaired Pavlovian reversal learning in SAPAP3 mutants

Genes Brain & Behavior ◽

10.1111/gbb.12557 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. e12557 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Bastijn J.G. van den Boom ◽

Adriana H. Mooij ◽

Ieva Misevičiūtė ◽

Damiaan Denys ◽

Ingo Willuhn

Keyword(s):

Mouse Model ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Reversal Learning ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder

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Inability to activate Rac1-dependent forgetting contributes to behavioral inflexibility in mutants of multiple autism-risk genes

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1602152113 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 113 (27) ◽

pp. 7644-7649 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Tao Dong ◽

Jing He ◽

Shiqing Wang ◽

Lianzhang Wang ◽

Yuqi Cheng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Reversal Learning ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Learning Task ◽

Repetitive Behaviors ◽

Loss Of Function ◽

Risk Genes ◽

Risk Gene ◽

Alternative Approach ◽

Similar Phenotype ◽

Autistic Symptoms

The etiology of autism is so complicated because it involves the effects of variants of several hundred risk genes along with the contribution of environmental factors. Therefore, it has been challenging to identify the causal paths that lead to the core autistic symptoms such as social deficit, repetitive behaviors, and behavioral inflexibility. As an alternative approach, extensive efforts have been devoted to identifying the convergence of the targets and functions of the autism-risk genes to facilitate mapping out causal paths. In this study, we used a reversal-learning task to measure behavioral flexibility in Drosophila and determined the effects of loss-of-function mutations in multiple autism-risk gene homologs in flies. Mutations of five autism-risk genes with diversified molecular functions all led to a similar phenotype of behavioral inflexibility indicated by impaired reversal-learning. These reversal-learning defects resulted from the inability to forget or rather, specifically, to activate Rac1 (Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1)-dependent forgetting. Thus, behavior-evoked activation of Rac1-dependent forgetting has a converging function for autism-risk genes.

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Cortical Hemodynamic Mechanisms of Reversal learning using High-Resolution Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy: A Pilot Study

10.21203/rs.3.rs-379282/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

charlotte piau ◽

Mahdi Mahmoudzadeh ◽

Astrid Kibleur ◽

Mircea Polosan ◽

Olivier David ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Frontal Cortex ◽

Reversal Learning ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Reward Processing ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Behavioral Abnormalities ◽

Reward And Punishment

Abstract Background: Reversal learning is widely used to analyze cognitive flexibility and characterize behavioral abnormalities associated with impulsivity and disinhibition. Recent studies using fMRI have focused on regions involved in reversal learning with negative and positive reinforcers. Although the frontal cortex has been consistently implicated in reversal learning, few studies have focused on whether reward and punishment may have different effects on lateral frontal structures in these tasks. Here, in eight healthy subjects, we used functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS) to characterize brain activity dynamics and differentiate the involvement of frontal structures in learning driven by reward and punishment. Results: We observed functional hemispheric asymmetries between punishment and reward processing by fNIRS following reversal of a learned rule. Moreover, the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (l-DLPFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) were activated under the reward condition only, whereas the orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) was significantly activated under the punishment condition, with a tendency towards activation for the right cortical hemisphere (r-DLPFC and r-IFG). Our results are compatible with the suggestion that the DLPFC is involved in the detection of contingency change. We propose a new representation for reward and punishment, with left lateralization for the reward process. Conclusions: These results provide insights into the indirect neural mechanisms of reversal learning and behavioral flexibility and confirm the use of fNIRS imaging in reversal-learning tasks as a translational strategy, particularly in subjects who cannot undergo fMRI recordings.

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Reversal of a Spatial Discrimination Task in the Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris)

Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnbeh.2021.614523 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander Bublitz ◽

Guido Dehnhardt ◽

Frederike D. Hanke

Keyword(s):

Reversal Learning ◽

Positive Reinforcement ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Learning Performance ◽

Spatial Discrimination ◽

Visual Signal ◽

Octopus Vulgaris ◽

Learning Criterion ◽

Incorrect Choice

Reversal learning requires an animal to learn to discriminate between two stimuli but reverse its responses to these stimuli every time it has reached a learning criterion. Thus, different from pure discrimination experiments, reversal learning experiments require the animal to respond to stimuli flexibly, and the reversal learning performance can be taken as an illustration of the animal's cognitive abilities. We herein describe a reversal learning experiment involving a simple spatial discrimination task, choosing the right or left side, with octopus. When trained with positive reinforcement alone, most octopuses did not even learn the original task. The learning behavior changed drastically when incorrect choices were indicated by a visual signal: the octopuses learned the task within a few sessions and completed several reversals thereby decreasing the number of errors needed to complete a reversal successively. A group of octopus trained with the incorrect-choice signal directly acquired the task quickly and reduced their performances over reversals. Our results indicate that octopuses are able to perform successfully in a reversal experiment based on a spatial discrimination showing progressive improvement, however, without reaching the ultimate performance. Thus, depending on the experimental context, octopus can show behavioral flexibility in a reversal learning task, which goes beyond mere discrimination learning.

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Behavioral flexibility and problem solving in an invasive bird

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.1975 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. e1975 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Corina J. Logan

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Reversal Learning ◽

Bird Species ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Association Test ◽

Future Research ◽

Changing Environments ◽

Important Trait ◽

Use Behavior

Behavioral flexibility is considered an important trait for adapting to environmental change, but it is unclear what it is, how it works, and whether it is a problem solving ability. I investigated behavioral flexibility and problem solving experimentally in great-tailed grackles, an invasive bird species and thus a likely candidate for possessing behavioral flexibility. Grackles demonstrated behavioral flexibility in two contexts, the Aesop’s Fable paradigm and a color association test. Contrary to predictions, behavioral flexibility did not correlate across contexts. Four out of 6 grackles exhibited efficient problem solving abilities, but problem solving efficiency did not appear to be directly linked with behavioral flexibility. Problem solving speed also did not significantly correlate with reversal learning scores, indicating that faster learners were not the most flexible. These results reveal how little we know about behavioral flexibility, and provide an immense opportunity for future research to explore how individuals and species can use behavior to react to changing environments.

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Behavioral flexibility in an invasive bird is independent of other behaviors

10.7287/peerj.preprints.1994 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Corina J Logan

Keyword(s):

Problem Solving ◽

Risk Aversion ◽

Reversal Learning ◽

Individual Variation ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Invasion Success ◽

Species Invasion ◽

Exploration Risk ◽

Distinct Source ◽

Open Question

Behavioral flexibility is considered important for a species to adapt to environmental change. Yet behavioral flexibility relates to problem solving ability and speed in unpredictable ways. This leaves an open question of whether behavioral flexibility instead varies with differences in individual behaviors, such as neophobia or exploration. If present, such correlations would mask which behavior causes individual variation. I investigated whether behavioral flexibility (reversal learning) performances were linked with other behaviors in great-tailed grackles, an invasive bird. I found that behavioral flexibility did not significantly correlate with neophobia, exploration, risk aversion, persistence, or motor diversity. This suggests that great-tailed grackle performance in behavioral flexibility tasks reflect a distinct source of individual variation. Maintaining multiple distinct sources of individual variation, and particularly variation in behavioral flexibility, may be a mechanism for this species’ invasion success by permitting populations to cope with the diversity of novel elements in their environments.

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Compulsivity and probabilistic reversal learning in OCD and cocaine addiction

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2015.09.210 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 30 (S2) ◽

pp. S110-S111 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. Smith ◽

N. Benzina ◽

F. Vorspan ◽

L. Mallet ◽

K. N’Diaye

Keyword(s):

Reversal Learning ◽

A Priori ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Learning Task ◽

Repetitive Behaviors ◽

Cocaine Addiction ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Cocaine Users ◽

Probabilistic Reversal Learning

Compulsive behavior is a core symptom of both obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and cocaine addiction (CA). Across both pathologies, one can identify a priori goal-directed actions (purportedly anxiolytic checking or washing in OCD and pleasure-seeking drug use in addiction) that turn into rigid, ritualized and repetitive behaviors over which the patient loose control. One possible psychopathological mechanism underlying compulsivity is behavioral inflexibility, namely a deficit in the aptitude to dynamically adapt to novel contexts and changing reward rules. The probabilistic reversal learning paradigm allows to objectively assess behavioral flexibility by challenging participants with a task where they have to learn through trials-and-errors which of two stimuli is the most-often rewarded one, while adjusting to sudden inconspicuous contingency reversals. We therefore hypothesized that both OCD and CA would be associated with impaired cognitive flexibility, as measured through perseverative response rate following contingency reversals in this task. Interestingly, impulsivity may also be assessed within this task via the tendency of participants to switch from one stimulus to the other following probabilistic errors. To investigate cognitive inflexibility in relation to CA and OCD respectively, we first compared the performance in a probabilistic reversal learning task of cocaine users, ex cocaine users (abstinent for 2 months or more), and controls, as well as that of participants from the general population whose obsessive-compulsive traits were assessed using the OCI-R, a well-validated self-questionnaire. Our task yielded results similar to those found in the literature: cocaine addicts changed their responses more often, and learned less effectively. Ex-cocaine addicts performed better than addicts but worse than controls, suggesting that addicts’ poor results may be in part explained by reversible cognitive consequences of addiction. Addicts with less cognitive impairments may also be less likely to relapse. Regarding the relationship of flexibility to subclinical OCD traits, we found no link between OCI-R score and perseveration, or between impulsiveness and excessive switching.

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