Early adolescent second-generation antipsychotic exposure produces long-term, post-treatment increases in body weight and metabolism-associated gene expression.

The use of second-generation antipsychotic (SGA) medications in pediatric patients raises concerns about potential long-term adverse outcomes. The current study evaluated the long-term effects of treatment with risperidone or olanzapine on body weight, caloric intake, serum insulin, blood glucose, and metabolism-associated gene expression in C57Bl/6J female mice. Compared to mice treated with vehicle, female mice treated with risperidone or olanzapine gained weight at higher rates during treatment and maintained higher body weights for months following treatment cessation.

Understanding Individual Subject Differences through Large Behavioral Datasets: Analytical and Statistical Considerations.

A core feature of behavior analysis is the single-subject design, in which each subject serves as its own control. This approach is powerful for identifying manipulations that are causal to behavioral changes but often fails to account for individual differences, particularly when coupled with a small sample size. It is more common for other subfields of psychology to use larger-N approaches; however, these designs also often fail to account for the individual by focusing on aggregate-level data only.

When Smaller Sooner Depletes a Pool of Resources Faster.

Behavior has short-term (proximal) and long-term (distal) consequences, and these consequences often involve different commodities. In particular, a commonly encountered distal consequence involves running out of resources - energy to respond, available food, ammunition, or money in the bank - that must be replenished before continuing a rewarding task. The current project examines proximal behavioral consequences in a video game (the amount of damage done to a clicked-on target as a function of waiting) and distal behavioral consequences (running out of the resources that allow the player to click on a target).

Statistical power and false positive rates for interdependent outcomes are strongly influenced by test type: Implications for behavioral neuroscience.

Statistical errors in preclinical science are a barrier to reproducibility and translation. For instance, linear models (e.g.

Longitudinal assessment of cognitive function in the APPswe/PS1dE9 mouse model of Alzheimer's-related beta-amyloidosis.

Preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related cognitive decline can be useful for developing therapeutics. The current study longitudinally assessed short-term memory, using a delayed matching-to-position (DMTP) task, and attention, using a 3-choice serial reaction time (3CSRT) task, from approximately 18 weeks of age through death or 72 weeks of age in APPswe/PS1dE9 mice, a widely used mouse model of AD-related amyloidosis. Both transgenic (Tg) and non-Tg mice exhibited improvements in DMTP accuracy over time.

Corticostriatal dynamics underlying components of binge-like consumption of palatable food in mice.

Binge eating (BE) is a maladaptive repetitive feeding behavior present across nearly all eating disorder diagnoses. Despite the substantial negative impact of BE on psychological and physiological health, its underlying neural mechanisms are largely unknown. Other repetitive behavior disorders (e.

Resource limitations: A taxonomy.

Decision making within the context of resource limitations requires balancing the short-term benefits of obtaining a resource and the long-term consequences of depleting those resources. The present manuscript focuses on four types of tasks that share this tradeoff to develop a taxonomy that will encourage a deeper understanding of the psychological processes at play. The four types considered are foraging, common pool traps, deterioration traps, and a novel designation referred to as resource cliffs.

The effects of sound in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task.

In this study, we examined the effects of pairing sounds with positive and negative outcomes in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). A number of published studies using the BART incorporate sounds into the task, where a slot machine or cash register sound is produced when rewards are collected and a popping sound is produced when balloons pop. However, some studies do not use sound, and other studies do not specify whether sound was used.

Learning when to wait and when to act.

Choosing how long to wait in order to optimize reward is a complex decision. We embedded these decisions within a video-game environment in which the amount of reward smoothly increased the longer one waited. The availability of external cues varied in order to determine how they affected the decision to wait to achieve the goal of maximizing the reward rate.

A quantitative analysis of accuracy, reliability and bias in judgements of functional analyses.

Functional analysis can be considered a diagnostic assessment that behavior analysts use to determine behavioral function. Such a diagnosis ultimately requires a yes or no decision (i.e.

Mixed effects modeling of Morris water maze data revisited: Bayesian censored regression.

Young, Clark, Goffus, and Hoane (Learning and Motivation, 40(2), 160-177, 2009) documented significant advantages of linear and nonlinear mixed-effects modeling in the analysis of Morris water maze data. However, they also noted a caution regarding the impact of the common practice of ending a trial when the rat had not reached the platform by a preestablished deadline. The present study revisits their conclusions by considering a new approach that involves multilevel (i.

The influence of training procedure and stimulus valence on the long-term maintenance of equivalence relations.

In the current research, we aimed at extending Silveira et al. (2016) results by verifying whether the long-term maintenance of the equivalence classes is influenced by stimulus valence and MTS training procedures. The delayed and simultaneous MTS were used to train two groups of participants in series of conditional relation trials involving pictures of humans' faces expressing familiar emotions (A) and abstract forms (B, C, and D).

Turtle, Task Ninja, or Time Waster? Who Cares? Traditional Task-Completion Strategies Are Overrated.

Standard approaches for identifying task-completion strategies, such as precrastination and procrastination, reduce behavior to single markers that oversimplify the process of task completion. To illustrate this point, we consider three task-completion strategies and introduce a new method to identify their use. This approach was tested using an archival data set (N = 8,655) of the available electronic records of research participation at Kansas State University.

Experience Matters: The Effects of Hypothetical versus Experiential Delays and Magnitudes on Impulsive Choice in Delay Discounting Tasks.

Impulsive choice in humans is typically measured using hypothetical delays and rewards. In two experiments, we determined how experiencing the delay and/or the reward affected impulsive choice behavior. Participants chose between two amounts of real or hypothetical candy (M&Ms) after a real or hypothetical delay (5-30 s), where choosing the shorter delay was the impulsive choice.

The contributions of central and peripheral vision to scene-gist recognition with a 180° visual field.

We investigated the relative contributions of central versus peripheral vision in scene-gist recognition with panoramic 180° scenes. Experiment 1 used the window/scotoma paradigm of Larson and Loschky (2009). We replicated their findings that peripheral vision was more important for rapid scene categorization, while central vision was more efficient, but those effects were greatly magnified.

Bayesian data analysis as a tool for behavior analysts.

Bayesian approaches to data analysis are considered within the context of behavior analysis. The paper distinguishes between Bayesian inference, the use of Bayes Factors, and Bayesian data analysis using specialized tools. Given the importance of prior beliefs to these approaches, the review addresses those situations in which priors have a big effect on the outcome (Bayes Factors) versus a smaller effect (parameter estimation).

Pigeons spontaneously form three-dimensional shape categories.

We explored the pigeon's representation of the shape of simple three-dimensional objects (geons) rotated in depth (four views each of four geons). Pigeons assigned to the Categorization group had to respond differentially to images of four different geons-termed arch, barrel, brick, and wedge-based on their 3D shape, regardless of the orientation of the object. Pigeons assigned to the Pseudocategorization group had to respond differentially to the same objects based on groupings that did not correspond to object identity, which required the learning of local orientation-dependent features (e.

Variations on the balloon analogue risk task: A censored regression analysis.

In the present project, we reexamined the balloon analogue risk task (BART) by evaluating three variations on the task: one that does not require pumping, one that controls for trial duration, and another that withholds feedback on popping until the end of each trial. To accurately assess the censored data produced by the BART, performance was compared across these variations using Bayesian analysis with censored regression. The first experiment compared a task that required pumping to one that did not, and revealed that the tendency to respond earlier than is optimal does not reflect an avoidance of effort.

The Reciprocal Relationships Between Escalation, Anger, and Confidence in Investment Decisions Over Time.

Research on escalation of commitment has predominantly been studied in the context of a single decision without consideration for the psychological consequences of escalating. This study sought to examine (a) the extent to which people escalate their commitment to a failing course of action in a sequential decision-making task, (b) confidence and anger as psychological consequences of escalation of commitment, and (c) the reciprocal relationship between escalation of commitment and confidence and anger. Participants were 110 undergraduate students who completed a series of investment decisions regarding a failing endeavor.

Discounting: A practical guide to multilevel analysis of choice data.

Multilevel modeling provides the ability to simultaneously evaluate the discounting of individuals and groups by examining choices between smaller sooner and larger later rewards. A multilevel logistic regression approach is advocated in which sensitivity to relative reward magnitude and relative delay are considered as separate contributors to choice. Examples of how to fit choice data using multilevel logistic models are provided to help researchers in the adoption of these methods.

The temporal dynamics of waiting when reward is increasing.

The temporal dynamics of waiting are complex. The present study used a video game involving contingencies that produced differential reinforcement of wait times by arranging for the magnitude of the reward to be related to the duration of each inter-response time. In previous research, when outcomes were gradually increasing in value from a minimum to a maximum, two modes of behavior are observed: waiting as little as possible before cashing in (i.

Discounting: A practical guide to multilevel analysis of indifference data.

Multilevel modeling provides the ability to simultaneously evaluate the discounting of individuals and groups using indifference point data. After considering the conditions when weaknesses emerge in estimating individual discounting as a prelude to estimating group discounting, examples are provided that indicate that multilevel modeling improves estimation in the presence of variability and missing data, and when trying to fit two-parameter discounting functions. Concrete examples of how to fit nonlinear multilevel models are provided to help researchers in the adoption of these methods.

Optimal go/no-go ratios to maximize false alarms.

Despite the ubiquity of go/no-go tasks in the study of behavioral inhibition, there is a lack of evidence regarding the impact of key design characteristics, including the go/no-go ratio, intertrial interval, and number of types of go stimuli, on the production of different response classes of central interest. In the present study we sought to empirically determine the optimal conditions to maximize the production of a rare outcome of considerable interest to researchers: false alarms. As predicted, the shortest intertrial intervals (450 ms), intermediate go/no-go ratios (2:1 to 4:1), and the use of multiple types of go stimuli produced the greatest numbers of false alarms.