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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 22, 2009, 29(16):5251-5259; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0315-09.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Fundamental Contribution by the Basolateral Amygdala to Different Forms of Decision Making

Sarvin Ghods-Sharifi, ^* Jennifer R. St. Onge, ^* and Stan B. Floresco

Department of Psychology and Brain Research Center, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stan B. Floresco, Department of Psychology and Brain Research Center, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. Email: floresco{at}psych.ubc.ca

Impairments in decision making about risks and rewards have been observed in patients with amygdala damage. Similarly, lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in rodents disrupts cost/benefit decision making, reducing preference for larger rewards obtainable after a delay or considerable physical effort. We assessed the effects of inactivation of the BLA on risk- and effort-based decision making, using discounting tasks conducted in an operant chamber. Separate groups of rats were trained on either a risk- or effort-discounting task, consisting of four blocks of 10 free-choice trials. Selection of one lever always delivered a smaller reward (one or two pellets), whereas responding on the other delivered a larger, four pellet reward. For risk discounting, the probability of receiving the larger reward decreased across trial blocks (100–12.5%), whereas on the effort task, the larger reward was delivered after a ratio of presses that increased across blocks (2–20). Infusions of GABA agonists baclofen/muscimol into the BLA disrupted risk discounting, inducing a risk-averse pattern of choice, and increased response latencies and trial omissions, most prominently during trial blocks that provided the greatest uncertainty about the most beneficial course of action. Similar inactivations also increased effort discounting, reducing the preference for larger yet more costly rewards, even when the relative delays to reward delivery were equalized across response options. These findings point to a fundamental role for the BLA in different forms of cost/benefit decision making, facilitating an organism's ability to overcome a variety of costs (work, uncertainty, delays) to promote actions that may yield larger rewards.

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Received Jan. 19, 2009; revised March 22, 2009; accepted March 24, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stan B. Floresco, Department of Psychology and Brain Research Center, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. Email: floresco{at}psych.ubc.ca

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. R. St. Onge and S. B. Floresco Prefrontal Cortical Contribution to Risk-Based Decision Making Cereb Cortex, November 5, 2009; (2009) bhp250v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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