Topic: Optimal decision-making

Impaired decision-making skills in patients with cocaine addiction are thought to drive both initiation and continuation of cocaine use despite its negative consequences. Literature suggests that females advance more quickly into substance use disorder, indicating sex-differences in vulnerability to drug addiction. The gambling task literature in patients addicted to cocaine and in rodents is inconsistent, and sex differences, if sex was not considered as a biological variable may have contributed to this. We hypothesize that chronic cocaine-exposure might affect decision-making in male and fe