Cognitive Biases Associated with Vulnerability to the Development of Pathological Gambling

Although gambling disorder is a serious social problem in modern societies, information about the cognitive traits that could determine vulnerability to this psychopathology is still scarce. In this chapter, we describe a behavioral protocol for preclinical experiments in rats that can be used for the assessment of the interaction between cognitive judgment bias measured as a stable and enduring behavioral trait and decision-making under risk. For this, the rats are initially trained and screened in a series of ambiguous-cue interpretation tests for “pessimistic” and “optimistic” traits. Subsequently, the animals are retrained and retested in the rat slot machine task, which allows the assessment of decision-making under risk and the crucial feature of gambling-like behavior that has been investigated in rats and humans—the interpretation of “near-miss” outcomes as a positive (i.e., “clear win”) situation. Preclinical modeling of these cognitive distortions in animals can facilitate our understanding of their neurobiological bases and potentially stimulate novel treatment options.