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A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Addicott, MA; Pearson, JM; Sweitzer, MM; Barack, DL; Platt, ML
Published in: Neuropsychopharmacology
September 2017

Foraging is a fundamental behavior, and many types of animals appear to have solved foraging problems using a shared set of mechanisms. Perhaps the most common foraging problem is the choice between exploiting a familiar option for a known reward and exploring unfamiliar options for unknown rewards-the so-called explore/exploit trade-off. This trade-off has been studied extensively in behavioral ecology and computational neuroscience, but is relatively new to the field of psychiatry. Explore/exploit paradigms can offer psychiatry research a new approach to studying motivation, outcome valuation, and effort-related processes, which are disrupted in many mental and emotional disorders. In addition, the explore/exploit trade-off encompasses elements of risk-taking and impulsivity-common behaviors in psychiatric disorders-and provides a novel framework for understanding these behaviors within an ecological context. Here we explain relevant concepts and some common paradigms used to measure explore/exploit decisions in the laboratory, review clinically relevant research on the neurobiology and neuroanatomy of explore/exploit decision making, and discuss how computational psychiatry can benefit from foraging theory.

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Published In

Neuropsychopharmacology

DOI

EISSN

1740-634X

Publication Date

September 2017

Volume

42

Issue

10

Start / End Page

1931 / 1939

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Psychiatry
  • Psychiatry
  • Mental Disorders
  • Humans
  • Exploratory Behavior
  • Decision Making
  • Brain
  • Biomedical Research
  • Appetitive Behavior
  • Animals
 

Citation

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Addicott, M. A., Pearson, J. M., Sweitzer, M. M., Barack, D. L., & Platt, M. L. (2017). A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research. Neuropsychopharmacology, 42(10), 1931–1939. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2017.108
Addicott, M. A., J. M. Pearson, M. M. Sweitzer, D. L. Barack, and M. L. Platt. “A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research.Neuropsychopharmacology 42, no. 10 (September 2017): 1931–39. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2017.108.
Addicott MA, Pearson JM, Sweitzer MM, Barack DL, Platt ML. A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2017 Sep;42(10):1931–9.
Addicott, M. A., et al. “A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research.Neuropsychopharmacology, vol. 42, no. 10, Sept. 2017, pp. 1931–39. Pubmed, doi:10.1038/npp.2017.108.
Addicott MA, Pearson JM, Sweitzer MM, Barack DL, Platt ML. A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off for Psychiatry Research. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2017 Sep;42(10):1931–1939.

Published In

Neuropsychopharmacology

DOI

EISSN

1740-634X

Publication Date

September 2017

Volume

42

Issue

10

Start / End Page

1931 / 1939

Location

England

Related Subject Headings

  • Psychiatry
  • Psychiatry
  • Mental Disorders
  • Humans
  • Exploratory Behavior
  • Decision Making
  • Brain
  • Biomedical Research
  • Appetitive Behavior
  • Animals