Social Value Unblocks Pavlovian Reinforcement Learning in Male Rats

Gurp, Sander van; Hoog, Jochen; Kalenscher, Tobias; Wingerden, Marijn van

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3382553

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Our results support the idea that the BLA integrates social information and contributes to the selection of appropriate social actions. We have recently argued that this selection of social actions might be the result of social reinforcement learning 7 , 14 , 37 , 38 , 49 . According to this framework, BR-choices of the actor might prompt the emission of appetitive social signals by the partner rat, which in turn reinforce the behaviors of the actor associated with these signals, eventually increasing the probability of BR-choices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SB scores greater than zero indicate more BR-choices in the partner than in the toy condition, scores equal to zero indicate equal choices in both conditions, and scores below zero more BR-choices in the toy condition. Because the reward delivered to the actor after BR- and OR-choices was always identical, SB scores higher than zero can be interpreted to reflect the added social value of a reward delivered to the conspecific 6 , 37 , 38 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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5-HT1A receptor agonism in the basolateral amygdala increases mutual-reward choices in rats

Schönfeld

Schäble

Zech

et al. 2020

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Rats show mutual-reward preferences, i.e., they prefer options that result in a reward for both themselves and a conspecific partner to options that result in a reward for themselves, but not for the partner. In a previous study, we have shown that lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) reduced choices for mutual rewards. Here, we aimed to explore the role of 5-HT1A receptors within the BLA in mutual-reward choices. Rats received daily injections of either 50 or 25 ng of the 5-HT1A receptor agonist 8-OH-DPAT or a vehicle solution into the BLA and mutual-reward choices were measured in a rodent prosocial choice task. Compared to vehicle injections, 8-OH-DPAT significantly increased mutual-reward choices when a conspecific was present. By contrast, mutual-reward choices were significantly reduced by 8-OH-DPAT injections in the presence of a toy rat. The effect of 8-OH-DPAT injections was statistically significant during the expression, but not during learning of mutual-reward behavior, although an influence of 8-OH-DPAT injections on learning could not be excluded. There were no differences between 8-OH-DPAT-treated and vehicle-treated rats in general reward learning, behavioral flexibility, locomotion or anxiety. In this study, we have shown that repeated injections of the 5-HT1A receptor agonist 8-OH-DPAT have the potential to increase mutual-reward choices in a social setting without affecting other behavioral parameters.

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