Topic: effort-based decision-making

The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been studied extensively using effort-based decision-making (EBDM) paradigms and has been shown to track effort costs. However, it remains unclear whether the dACC encodes objective measures of effort, such as energy expenditure, or subjective perceptions of effort. Further, prior EBDM research in humans has focused on artificial, seated tasks like gripping hand dynamometers, which 1) do not accurately reflect real-world effort demands and 2) are limited by fMRI's temporal resolution, making it difficult to link neural activity to behavior. To

Early-life stress alters brain function and increases the risk of suffering psychiatric disorders later in life. Sustained stress affects the response of the mesolimbic dopaminergic (DA) system. That system regulates the activational component of motivated behavior, including effort-based decision-making. The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of social distancing starting at PND28 (SD - two mice per cage separated by a wall with holes) on the willingness to exert effort during adulthood in an operant procedure. In this task, mice of both sexes were trained in different schedules that