Neural mechanisms of cost-benefit decision-making in the rodent anterior cingulate cortex: A systematic review of extracellular recordings.

BACKGROUND

Making decisions is a vital part of life for all beings. Impaired decision-making can lead to various neuropsychiatric diseases and problems, such as drug addiction and gambling. Therefore, it is essential to identify the causes of these disorders and seek effective treatments. Rodents play a key role in studying the brain's neural mechanisms of emotional and cognitive control.

METHODS

In this systematic review, we focused on the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in cost-benefit decision-making by assessing extracellular neural activity in rodents. We extracted 46 articles from the Scopus and PubMed databases, meeting specific criteria, and thoroughly examined them.

RESULTS

We summarized the data concerning subjects, recorded signals, behavioral tasks, the primary objective of each study, and the key results obtained from each.

CONCLUSIONS

To apply findings from rodent studies to other species, we must translate the results across species. However, the lack of homologies in the anatomical definition and nomenclature of the cingulate cortex sub-regions between rodents and primates complicates this process.