title: The rat's not for turning: Dissociating the psychological components of cognitive inflexibility.
abstract: Executive function is commonly assessed by assays of cognitive flexibility such as reversal learning and attentional set-shifting. Disrupted performance in these assays, apparent in many neuropsychiatric disorders, is frequently interpreted as inability to overcome prior associations with reward. However, non-rewarded or irrelevant associations may be of considerable importance in both discrimination learning and cognitive flexibility. Non-rewarded associations can have greater influence on choice behaviour than rewarded associations in discrimination learning. Pathology-related deficits in cognitive flexibility can produce selective disruptions to both the processing of irrelevant associations and associations with reward. Genetic and pharmacological animal models demonstrate that modulation of reversal learning may result from alterations in either rewarded or non-rewarded associations. Successful performance in assays of cognitive flexibility can therefore depend on a combination of rewarded, non-rewarded, and irrelevant associations derived from previous learning, accounting for some inconsistencies observed in the literature. Taking this combination into account may increase the validity of animal models and may also reveal pathology-specific differences in problem solving and executive function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK; MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.. Electronic address: sn440@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Simon R O
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK; MRC and Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.; Department of Neuroscience, Unit of Functional Neurobiology, University of Uppsala, SE-75124 Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alsiö
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Somerville
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK.
authors.forename: Peter G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Clifton
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D051381:Rats; D012193:Reversal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward
keywords: Animal models; Attentional set shifting; Cognitive flexibility; Discrimination learning; Reversal learning