Changing Delay Discounting and Impulsive Choice: Implications for Addictions, Prevention, and Human Health.

Delay discounting describes the tendency to devalue delayed consequences or future prospects. The degree to which an individual discounts delayed events appears trait-like in that it is stable over time and across functionally similar situations. Steeply discounting delayed rewards is correlated with most substance-use disorders, the severity of these disorders, rates of relapse to drug use, and a host of other maladaptive decisions impacting human health.

Reducing impulsive choice: VI. Delay-exposure training reduces aversion to delay-signaling stimuli.

Delay-exposure (DE) training consistently and robustly reduces impulsive choice in rats, but the behavioral mechanisms behind this effect are not yet understood. The present study evaluated if DE training works by mitigating aversion to delay-signaling stimuli-those encountered when rats chose the larger-later reward in impulsive choice assessments. Fifty-seven rats were randomly assigned to 120 days of training with delayed reinforcement, training with immediate reinforcement (IE), or to a no-training Control group.

Impulsive choice and pre-exposure to delays: iv. effects of delay- and immediacy-exposure training relative to maturational changes in impulsivity.

Impulsive choice describes preference for smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later rewards. Excessive delay discounting (i.e.

How suboptimal is suboptimal choice?

In a frequently used suboptimal-choice procedure pigeons choose between an alternative that delivers three food pellets with p = 1.0 and an alternative that delivers ten pellets with p = 0.2.

Impulsive choice, alcohol consumption, and pre-exposure to delayed rewards: II. Potential mechanisms.

In a prior study (Stein et al., 2013), we reported that rats pre-exposed to delayed rewards made fewer impulsive choices, but consumed more alcohol (12% wt/vol), than rats pre-exposed to immediate rewards. To understand the mechanisms that produced these findings, we again pre-exposed rats to either delayed (17.