Aspen Holm

This study seeks to investigate the relationship between explore vs. exploit behaviors in the spatial restless bandit task in mice by analyzing the x and y coordinates of decisions made in a touchscreen operant chamber. While much research has focused on the relationship between different behavioral states during decision making, there have been very few investigations into how these behavioral states correlate with motor behavior during decision making tasks. We examined not only what choices were made, but how motor behavior was affected by behavioral state. By translating motivation into action selection in this way, we are able to further understand executive function and decision making processes. In this study, we measured the Euclidean distances between consecutive touch events and Mahalanobis distances of touches from the centroids of left and right choice responses. Our results from both Euclidean and Mahalanobis analyses showed a significant relationship between both distance and state, as well as sex and state. Male mice showed a tendency to have a wider range of touch locations than female mice across states, and exploit touches for both males and females tended to be closer together, as well as closer to the center of the screen. The analyses used here will pave the way for other investigations into how stereotyped motor behaviors can reflect contributions to decision flexibility.