The Five-choice serial-reaction time task (5CSRTT) is a laboratory behavioral task used in psychological research to assess visuospatial

attention Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...

and motor

impulsivity In psychology, impulsivity (or impulsiveness) is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences. Impulsive actions are typically "poorly conceived, prema ...

in animals. The task takes place within an

operant chamber An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The cham ...

equipped with at least five holes (apertures) that can illuminate, and a food tray to deliver reward. The 5CSRTT requires the animal (typically a rat, although mice can also be used) to correctly identify which of the five apertures has been briefly illuminated, via a nose poke, in order to receive a sugar

reward Reward may refer to: Places * Reward (Shelltown, Maryland), a historic home in Shelltown Maryland * Reward, California (disambiguation) * Reward-Tilden's Farm, a historic home in Chestertown Maryland Arts, entertainment, and media * "Rewa ...

. The difficulty of the task is controlled by the length of time the aperture is illuminated: a shorter illumination time requires the animal to pay greater attention, and thus is more difficult (as shown by decreased accuracy). Between every trial, there is also a short interval wherein the animal must withhold all responses, and any responding during this interval is met with a brief time-out and recorded as a failure of inhibitory control. The 5CSRTT was initially designed by

Trevor Robbins Trevor William Robbins CBE FRS FMedSci is a Professor of cognitive neuroscience and former Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Robbins interests are in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, behavioural neuros ...

and colleagues in the early 1980s as an analogue of the human

continuous performance task A continuous performance task, continuous performance test, or CPT, is any of several kinds of neuropsychological test that measures a person's sustained and selective attention. Sustained attention is the ability to maintain a consistent focus on ...

. Because the 5CSRTT has separate measures of attention, impulsivity, and reaction times, it has proven useful in the pre-clinical study of the treatment of diagnoses such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and is also a precursor to modern rodent models of gambling and

decision making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rati ...

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Animal testing Behavioral neuroscience

See also

References