Evidence for Conserved Strategies in Cost-Benefit Decision-Making in Rodents and Humans

Making decisions is a common process necessary for nearly all organisms that is extremely variable and altered by contexts, states, and other external/intrinsic factors. Linking quantifiable behaviors to their associated biological components is a challenge being addressed in current research. Importantly, aberrancies in decision-making are common symptoms observed in individuals diagnosed with neuropsychiatric disorders. Focusing on cost-benefit decision-making in four different contexts generally resulted in a greater selection of rewards while minimizing associated costs. Interestingly, the psychometric functions generated by these trade-offs can be neatly clustered into representations of distinct behavioral strategies. These clusters of behavioral strategies were also identified in rodents demonstrating similarities in cost-benefit decision-making between species. Overall, evidence that human decisions can be distilled into a discrete set of strategies is a useful tool that may set a foundation for efficiently tailoring neuropsychiatric treatment to individuals.