Rats adopt the optimal timescale for evidence integration in a dynamic environment

Alex T. Piet, Ahmed El Hady, and Carlos D. Brody. Nature Communications, 2018

Alex Piet

Evidence accumulation for decision making is a commonly studied paradigm in neuroscience. However, most studies examine decision making in a static environment. That is, the statistics of the evidence and the correct choice remain constant within each trial. In a static environment, the normative behavior is to equally consider all evidence presented. However in a dynamic environment, where the correct choice changes within one trial, the normative strategy involves discounting older, possibly out dated, information. We developed a dynamic decision making task for rats, and found that rats adopt the optimal timescale for discounting old information.