Cost and Punishment Proximity: Automated Dissection of Affective Decision-Making in Rodent Models

The timing of aversive outcomes critically shapes decision-making, yet how unavoidable punishment's proximity influences choice, unlike reward discounting, is less understood. This thesis examines how mice choose between equal rewards when faced with immediate versus delayed inescapable punishment. Using a validated automated T-maze, adult C57BL/6J mice (N=12) faced choice between two paths offering equal immediate rewards but differing in the timing (immediate/advanced vs. delayed) of an identical, unavoidable light stimulus, allowing precise behavioural recording without spatial bias. Mice robustly and significantly preferred the path leading to immediate (advanced) punishment. This "get it over with" strategy suggests the anticipatory cost of delayed punishment, potentially involving anxiety or dread, surpasses the immediate aversive impact. Paradoxically, this preferred choice incurred significantly longer decision latencies at the choice point and increased overall trial durations. Such hesitation indicates substantial cognitive conflict when approaching an imminent, though ultimately preferred, negative outcome. This study reveals a key dissociation between the factors driving ultimate choice preference (the imperative to minimise anticipatory cost) and the immediate cognitive processing costs incurred during decision execution (cognitive conflict). It offers a refined behavioural framework and a robust automated model for investigating the neural basis of decision-making under aversive conflict, holding implications for neuropsychiatric conditions where the evaluation of future negative consequences is perturbed.