Alev Ecevitoglu, Nicolette Meka, Renee A Rotolo, Gayle A Edelstein, Sonya Srinath, Kathryn R Beard, Carla Carratala-Ros, Rose E Presby, Jianjing Cao, Amarachi Okorom, Amy H Newman, Mercè Correa, John D Salamone
People with depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders can experience motivational dysfunctions such as fatigue and anergia, which involve reduced exertion of effort in goal-directed activity. To model effort-related motivational dysfunction, effort-based choice tasks can be used, in which rats can select between obtaining a preferred reinforcer by high exertion of effort vs. a low effort/less preferred option. Preclinical data indicate that dopamine transport (DAT) inhibitors can reverse pharmacologically-induced low-effort biases and increase selection of high-effort options in effort-based choice tasks...
March 1, 2024: Neuropsychopharmacology