ArticlePsychopharmacology2021
Sign tracking predicts suboptimal behavior in a rodent gambling task.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Frontal Brain Injury Reduces Sensitivity to Reward-Predictive Cues and Remodels the Nucleus Accumbens.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Test-retest reliability of the gaze index for sign-tracking and goal-tracking.Behavior research methods · 2026Article
- Motivation, attention, and uncertainty: insights from animal and human research and implications for addiction.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- When cues take the wheel: cue-control across alcohol use disorder, binge-eating disorder, gambling disorder, and internet gaming disorder.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Ventral Striatal Cholinergic Interneurons Regulate Decision-Making or Motor Impulsivity Differentially across Learning and Biological Sex.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Modulation of Dopamine Neurons Alters Behavior and Event Encoding in the Nucleus Accumbens during Pavlovian Conditioning.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Involvement of dopamine D3 receptor in impulsive choice decision-making in male rats.Neuropharmacology · 2024Article
- Reward-Mediated, Model-Free Reinforcement-Learning Mechanisms in Pavlovian and Instrumental Tasks Are Related.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- A mechanical task for measuring sign- and goal-tracking in humans: A proof-of-concept study.Behavioural brain research · 2023Article
- Motor impulsivity but not risk-related impulsive choice is associated to drug intake and drug-primed relapse.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Propensity for risky choices despite lower cue reactivity in adolescent rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleReward-associated cues can promote maladaptive behavior, including risky decision-making in a gambling setting. A propensity for sign tracking over goal tracking-i.e., interaction with a reward-predictive cue rather than the site of reward-demonstrates an individual's tendency to transfer motivational value to a cue. However, the relationship of sign tracking to risky decision-making remains unclear.
objectivesTo determine whether sign tracking predicts risky choice, we used a Pavlovian conditioned approach task to evaluate the tendency of male rats to sign track to a lever cue and then trained rats on a rodent gambling task (rGT) with win-associated cues. We also tested the effects of D-amphetamine, quinpirole (a D
resultsIncreased sign tracking relative to goal tracking was associated with suboptimal performance on the rGT, including decreased selection of the optimal choice, increased selection of a high-risk/high-reward option, and increased impulsive premature choices. Amphetamine increased choices of a low-risk/low-reward option at the expense of optimal and high-risk choices, whereas quinpirole and PD128907 had little effect on choice allocation, but reduced impulsivity. Drug effects were similar across sign tracker and goal tracker individuals.
conclusionsCue reactivity, as measured by sign tracking, is predictive and may be an important driver of risky and impulsive choices in a gambling setting laden with salient audiovisual cues. Evaluating an individual's sign tracking behavior may be an avenue to predict vulnerability to pathological gambling and the efficacy of treatments.
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