CBGTPy: An Extensible Cortico-basal Ganglia-thalamic Framework for Modeling Biological Decision Making

Overview

Journal bioRxiv

Date 2023 Sep 21

PMID 37732280

Authors

Matthew Clapp

Jyotika Bahuguna

Cristina Giossi

Jonathan E Rubin

Timothy Verstynen

Catalina Vich

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Here we introduce CBGTPy, a virtual environment for designing and testing goal-directed agents with internal dynamics that are modeled on the cortico-basal-ganglia-thalamic (CBGT) pathways in the mammalian brain. CBGTPy enables researchers to investigate the internal dynamics of the CBGT system during a variety of tasks, allowing for the formation of testable predictions about animal behavior and neural activity. The framework has been designed around the principle of flexibility, such that many experimental parameters in a decision making paradigm can be easily defined and modified. Here we demonstrate the capabilities of CBGTPy across a range of single and multi-choice tasks, highlighting the ease of set up and the biologically realistic behavior that it produces. We show that CBGTPy is extensible enough to apply to a range of experimental protocols and to allow for the implementation of model extensions with minimal developmental effort.

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