Behavioral Correlates of Procedural Automation and Deliberation in a Two Step Nose-Port Fixation Task in Rats

Abstract

Behavioral rat studies distinguish between place and response strategies, also known as deliberation and procedural automation, which describe the general extent to which rats are consciously deciding between various outcomes. It is thought deliberation takes more time because the rat is referencing an internal model of the task to determine its actions as opposed to automation which would be more simple learned and reactive behavior. To identify these states a two step task is used in rats which requires them to make use of an internal model of task states to perform optimally. At a decision point, Vicarious Trial and Error (VTE) is associated with a deliberative state and path stereotypy with an automative one. In order to track rats noninvasively over many trials, DeepLabCut (DLC), a python package used for motion tracking is employed. DLC was successfully used to analyze and label videos of rats performing trials of the two step nose-port fixation task. However, VTE and path stereotypy analysis did not yield distributions which clearly showed the presence of VTE, or greater path stereotypy with more experience within reward blocks over the course of an experimental session.