Incentive learning and decision making in the aging brain

描述(申请人提供)：随着老年人比例继续以前所未有的速度增长，老年人可能需要做出越来越独立的与健康相关的决定和财务决定。因此，更好地了解认知和情感加工中与年龄相关的变化对决策的影响越来越迫切。行为和神经证据都表明，年轻人和老年人在处理金钱激励方面存在差异(例如，老年人对金钱损失的预期减弱)，这可能会对财务决策产生特定的后果(例如，老年人通常对潜在负面结果的警告信号不那么敏感)。尽管这些情感偏好在调节情绪体验和优化幸福感方面可能是健康的和适应性的，但它们可能会对金融学习和决策产生有害影响。这项拟议研究的主要目的是使用绩效行为测量和功能磁共振成像来检验激励性学习和基于激励性决策的年龄差异。这一建议的具体目的是(1)调查强化价对终身激励加工的影响；(2)考察老年人在更多的个体中是否表现出相同的价态不对称 认知要求逆转学习，以及(3)在更实用的投资决策范式中，检验老年人与年轻人在理性风险决策和风险偏好方面是否有所不同。这一系列基础研究的发现可能会对科学家理解潜在的决策过程如何随年龄变化产生影响，并最终也可能有助于识别老年人做出不佳决策的标志。这一研究的长期目标是通过改善个人层面的决策来改善老年人的经济和情绪健康。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As the proportion of older adults continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, aging adults may be required to make increasingly more independent health-related and financial decisions. Thus, it is increasingly imperative to better understand the impact of age-related changes in both cognitive and affective processing on decision-making. Both behavioral and neural evidence suggests that younger and older adults differ in the processing of monetary incentives (e.g., older adults show attenuated anticipation of monetary losses), which could have specific consequences for financial decisions (e.g., older adults may be generally less sensitive to the warning signs of potential negative outcomes). Although these affective preferences may be healthy and adaptive for regulating emotional experience and optimizing well-being, they may have harmful effects on financial learning and decision making. The main objective of the proposed research is to examine age differences in incentive learning and incentive-based decision-making using both behavioral measures of performance and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The specific aims of this proposal are to (1) investigate the influence of reinforcement valence on incentive processing across the life span, (2) examine whether older adults show the same valence asymmetry in more cognitively demanding reversal learning, and (3) examine whether older adults differ from younger adults both in rational risky decision-making and risk preference in a more applied investment decision paradigm. Findings from this line of basic research may have implications for scientists' understanding of how processes underlying decision-making change with age, and might eventually also facilitate identification of markers for suboptimal decisions in older adults. The long-term goal of this line of research is to improve the financial and emotional health of older adults by improving decision-making at the individual level.