NEUROECONOMICS OF AGE RELATED CHANGES IN COGNITIVE CONTROL

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案探讨了老年人经济决策行为的神经和心理机制。经济决策是日常生活的重要组成部分，可能与老年人特别相关（例如，储蓄与支出决策、退休计划、医疗保健选择和药物依从性）。衰老认知神经科学的基础研究表明，老年人根据内部目标控制思想和行动的能力下降，这可能源于外侧前额叶皮层和中脑多巴胺系统功能的年龄相关变化。然而，目前几乎没有人知道这些与年龄增长相关的认知和神经变化是否以及如何影响经济相关行为。 目前的建议提供了一个非常新颖的角度对这个问题，通过利用和整合三个领域的理论发展：a）老化的认知神经科学; c）认知控制的神经机制;和c）行为经济学研究。通过使用新的实验范式和最先进的神经影像学方法，拟议的研究将系统地研究经济决策的核心组成部分，这些组成部分可能特别受到与年龄相关的认知控制变化的影响，包括冒险和不确定性，跨时选择，探索，情感框架效应和个体差异影响。这些研究的结果有望为老年人的经济选择行为提供关键的新数据，以及这种行为与认知控制神经基质中与年龄相关的变化的关系。 该项目通过提供有关老年人如何做出经济决策的关键信息（例如，储蓄与花钱）在与年龄相关的大脑功能变化方面。更好地了解与年龄相关的经济决策变化的大脑基础，对于确定老年人在某些决策相关行为中可能受损的原因和方式，以及制定适当的纠正干预措施来解决此类损伤至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal explores the neural and psychological mechanisms that underlie economic decision-making behavior in older adults. Economic decisions are a critical component of everyday life, and may have special relevance for older adults (e.g., saving vs. spending decisions, retirement planning, health care choices, and medication compliance). Basic research in the cognitive neuroscience of aging has suggested that older adults show declines in the ability to control thoughts and actions based on internal goals, and that this may stem from age-related changes in the function of the lateral prefrontal cortex and mid-brain dopamine system. Yet currently, almost nothing is known about whether and how these cognitive and neural changes associated with advancing age impact economic-related behaviors. The current proposal provides a highly novel perspective on this issue, by leveraging and integrating theoretical developments in three areas: a) the cognitive neuroscience of aging; c) neural mechanisms of cognitive control; and c) behavioral economics research. Through the use of novel experimental paradigms and state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods, the proposed studies will systematically examine core components of economic decision-making that may be particularly impacted by age-related changes in cognitive control, including risk-taking and uncertainty, inter- temporal choice, exploration, affective framing effects, and individual difference influences. The findings of these studies promise to provide critical new data regarding economic choice behavior in older adults, and the relationship of such behavior to age-related changes in the neural substrates of cognitive control. This project has high relevance for public health by providing critical information regarding how older adults make economic decisions (e.g., saving vs. spending money) in terms of age-related changes in brain function. An improved understanding of the brain basis of age-related changes in economic decision-making will be critical for determining why and how older adults might be impaired in some decision-related behaviors but not others, and in developing appropriate corrective interventions to address such impairments.