How well does a rat simulate a human gambler?

How well does a rat simulate a human gambler? Well enough to be the basis of science announcements. Those announcements come from a laboratory at the University of British Columbia. Here’s one of the announcements:

UBC Psychology Professor Catharine Winstanley [pictured here]’s one-of-a-kind approach to gambling addiction is a highlight of the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, a major research and clinical facility at UBC….

One of the lab’s innovative studies, lead by PhD student Paul Cocker, created a “casino-like” slot machine, using flashing lights and sugar pellet rewards, to study behaviour in rats.

Her team discovered that a type of drug called D4 antagonists, which work by blocking a specific type of dopamine receptor in the brain, help animals recognize a ‘win’ versus a ‘loss’ on the rat slot machine. In other words, says Winstanley, “it makes them less vulnerable to what is called the ‘near miss effect’ — that feeling of being closer to a win when two out of three symbols match- which we know motivates continual engagement with the game.”

While still in a preliminary stage, the hope is that dopamine D4 antagonists will be a treatment avenue for treating gambling addictions in humans.

The lab’s newest publication is:

“Activation of dopamine D4 receptors within the anterior cingulate cortex enhances the erroneous expectation of reward on a rat slot machine task,” Cocker PJ, Hosking JG, Murch WS, Clark L, Winstanley CA.,

Neuropharmacology. 2016 Jan 14.

This is big news, as shown by many news reports. The Vancouver Sun‘s report carries the headline “Music, flashing lights encourage risky gambling in rats, UBC study“.

A press release issued by the university expressed the news with perhaps a hint of a soupçon of nuance: “Flashing lights and music turn rats into problem gamblers“. That press release includes a video of the rat casino in action. Here a screen capture from that video — note the flashing casino-style light and the tail of a rat:

(Thanks to Adam K. Olson for bringing this to our attention.)