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Effort-Related Decision Making In Comt Variant Mice: Pharmacological Studies And Genetic Susceptibility To Motivational Dysfunction, Suzanne Cayer
Effort-Related Decision Making In Comt Variant Mice: Pharmacological Studies And Genetic Susceptibility To Motivational Dysfunction, Suzanne Cayer
Honors Scholar Theses
Effort-related decision making tasks in animals can model motivational symptoms in humans, which are a set of symptoms spanning a multitude of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The present studies aimed to evaluate the effort-related effects of the Val158Met polymorphism of human catechol-methyltransferase (COMT), by testing mice carrying either the human COMT Val (n=8) or Met allele (n=8) with Wild-Type control mice (n=15) by using concurrent FR2 and FR4/pellet choice tasks in a touchscreen operant conditioning apparatus. The Val158Met polymorphism has been repeatedly associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, and the Val allele has …