Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (Feb 2014)

Nonhuman gamblers: lessons from rodents, primates, and robots

  • Fabio ePaglieri,
  • Elsa eAddessi,
  • Francesca eDe Petrillo,
  • Giovanni eLaviola,
  • Marco eMirolli,
  • Domenico eParisi,
  • Giancarlo ePetrosino,
  • Marialba eVentricelli,
  • Francesca eZoratto,
  • Francesca eZoratto,
  • Walter eAdriani

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00033
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

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The search for neuronal and psychological underpinnings of pathological gambling in humans would benefit from investigating related phenomena also outside of our species. In this paper, we present a survey of studies in three widely different populations of agents, namely rodents, non-human primates, and robots. Each of these populations offer valuable and complementary insights on the topic, as the literature demonstrates. In addition, we highlight the deep and complex connections between relevant results across these different areas of research (i.e., cognitive and computational neuroscience, neuroethology, cognitive primatology, neuropsychiatry, evolutionary robotics), to make the case for a greater degree of methodological integration in future studies on pathological gambling.

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