Neural Modulation and Decision Making: Mid-Striatum Deep Brain Stimulation Effects on 5-choice Serial Reaction Task
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has shown therapeutic promise to treat treatment-resistant obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It is hypothesized that bilateral DBS to the mid-striatum improves decision making through promoting cognitive flexibility. Previous work in the lab concluded that bilateral DBS improved reaction time in rodents while on the Set-Shifting task. These results were promising but were unable to reveal the type of behavioral change responsible for these improvements. Further study was needed to determine whether the treatment’s mechanism of decreasing reaction time was rooted in cognitive flexibility or impulsivity. The 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT) was used to determine which of these two mechanisms were responsible for the change in reaction time. The 5CSRTT can measure impulsive action by testing response inhibition. Food pellets are not rewarded if rodents are unable to wait five seconds for a light to appear after trial initiation. Rodents that respond prematurely more often while stimulated are considered to act impulsively. Our results conclude that bilateral DBS treatment is not correlated to significant increases in premature responses (p > 0.05). These findings suggest that DBS therapy may encourage cognitive flexibility, a trait compromised in OCD. Future work will test how different stimulation parameters in the mid-striatum affect decision-making.