Dopamine activity in the nigrostriatal pathway alters cue-induced risky choice patterns in female rats.

Deficits in cost/benefit decision making is a critical risk factor for gambling disorder. Reward-paired cues may play an important role, as these stimuli can enhance risk preference in rats. Despite extensive research implicating the dorsal striatum in the compulsive aspects of addiction, the role of nigrostriatal dopaminergic activity in cue-induced risk preference remains unclear, particularly in females.

D Agonist during Learning Potentiates Cued Risky Choice.

Impulse control and/or gambling disorders can be triggered by dopamine agonist therapies used to treat Parkinson's disease, but the cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms underlying these adverse effects are unknown. Recent data show that adding win-paired sound and light cues to the rat gambling task (rGT) potentiates risky decision-making and impulsivity via the dopamine system, and that changing dopaminergic tone has a greater influence on behavior while subjects are learning task contingencies. Dopamine agonist therapy may therefore be potentiating risk-taking by amplifying the behavioral impact of gambling-related cues on novel behavior.

Divergent effects of oral cannabis oil extracts marketed as C. indica or C. sativa on exertion of cognitive effort in rats.

The main psychoactive compound within the cannabis plant, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is thought to drive both the sensation of "high" and the cognitive impairments associated with cannabis consumption. Researchers keen to understand how cannabis impairs cognition have, therefore, studied the behavioral effects of systemic injections of THC in animal models. However, cannabis contains multiple other cannabinoids which may critically modulate the resulting cognitive effects.

Chemogenetic inhibition of dopaminergic projections to the nucleus accumbens has sexually dimorphic effects in the rat gambling task.

Women and men can differ in their propensity to take risks and develop impulse control and addiction disorders. Sexual dimorphisms in behavioral control by the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward system may underlie these phenomena, given its sensitivity to gonadal hormones. However, this is hard to test experimentally using humans.