Behavioral investigation of the sense of agency in rats by manipulating temporal delays between response and outcome: Insights from a causal reasoning task

Abstract

The sense of agency is the ability to attribute one’s actions and their effects on the external environment. Temporal delays between actions and outcomes in humans reduce the sense of agency. This study used the causal reasoning task developed by Blaisdell et al. (2006) to examine whether behavioral changes similar to those in humans occur in rats when temporal delays are introduced between lever pressing and stimulus presentation. In Experiments 1 and 2, changes in nose-poke responses, an indicator of food expectations, were measured under delayed conditions ranging from 0 to 1000 ms. Nose-poke responses increased as the delay extended from 250 to 500 ms. These findings were superficially consistent with human studies, in which temporal delays attenuated the sense of agency. In Experiment 3, MK-801-treated rats, a pharmacological model of schizophrenia, were used to examine whether the reduction in the sense of agency observed during schizotypy could be replicated. These rats exhibited increased nose-poke responses compared to controls, showing behavioral consistency with findings in humans. The present results suggest that, while this paradigm has potential for evaluating the sense of agency in rats, performance is still influenced by multiple factors, underscoring the importance of continued methodological refinement.