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Authors & Affiliations
Stéphanie Cramoisy, Lidia Cabeza, Bahrie Ramadan, Christophe Houdayer, Emmanuel Haffen, Fanchon Bourasset, Yvan Peterschmitt
Abstract
Survival and well-being hinge on an organism's adeptness at evaluating diverse options, considering the costs and benefits before making adaptive decisions. The influence of stress on cognition and reward-related behaviors varies depending on factors such as the duration and type of stressor, as well as intricate interactions between genetic factors and the environment. Stress may either enhance optimal decision-making and reward-related approaches or contribute to cognitive impairments and ineffective coping mechanisms, falling along a spectrum from resilience to vulnerability. The impact of sex differences on decision-making abilities under stress remains poorly understood. Therefore, in line with our previous work with adult male mice, longitudinal experiments were conducted on adult female mice exposed to chronic corticosterone administration (versus vehicle control) for 4-8 weeks to study their risk-taking behavior, sensitivity to gain and loss, and performance in decision-making tasks. To assess their ability to make value-based decisions, a new operant mouse gambling task (omGT) was used to measure their performance. Corticosterone treatment did not affect final performances in the operant mouse gambling task in female mice, regardless of the treatment duration. However, the corticosterone treatment appears to have an impact on the switch between exploration and exploitation in the gambling task and strategies for maximizing gains. To some extent, these results echo those found in males treated with corticosterone and contribute to better characterize how stress influences decision making in females.