Aging and social decision-making: a Neuroeconomic approach

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目提出了一系列实验，这些实验将有助于新兴的衰老神经经济学领域，该领域试图通过研究行为和潜在的神经基础来理解整个生命周期中决策的组成过程。拟议的研究试图开始具体说明决策的机制，特别是构成决策过程的审议和情感组成部分。情感对决策的影响在很大程度上被忽视了很多年，但最近对我们的情绪状态如何影响我们做出的决定类型的兴趣提供了一个令人兴奋的机会来扩大我们对这一最重要过程的认识。此外，研究情感加工和慎重加工在整个生命周期中对决策的不同影响程度，可以为评估这些基本认知功能提供重要线索。具体来说，拟议的实验将使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）来测量参与经济决策的人的大脑功能。这一建议建立在作者之前的工作基础上，研究了人类在与另一个人进行相应的社会互动时做出决策的过程。这些研究发现了可靠的、独立的神经活动模式，与情感偏见和深思熟虑的偏见相对应，并表明随后的决定似乎是基于这些不同的动机。在本提案中，将对先前研究中产生的假设进行系统检验。使用功能磁共振成像和各种最后通牒和信任游戏的实验将更深入地探索情感和审议过程对年轻人和老年人决策的影响程度。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project proposes a series of experiments that will contribute to the burgeoning field of the neuroeconomics of aging, which attempts understand the component processes of decision-making across the lifespan by examining both behavior and the underlying neural substrates. The proposed studies seek to begin specifying the mechanisms of decisions, in particular the deliberative and affective components that make up the decision-making process. Affective influences on decision-making have been largely ignored for many years, but recent interest in how our emotional states can affect the type of decisions we make offer an exciting opportunity to broaden our knowledge of this most important process. Further, examining the degree to which affective and deliberative processing differentially influence decision-making across the lifespan can provide important clues for the assessment of these basic cognitive functions. Specifically, the proposed experiments will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain function of people engaged in economic decision-making. This proposal builds on previous work by the author examining the processes underlying human decision-making in a consequential social interaction with another person. These studies have found reliable, independent patterns of neural activity corresponding to affective and deliberative biases, and shown that subsequent decisions appear to be based on these different motives. In the present proposal, hypotheses generated in this previous study will be systematically tested. Experiments using fMRI and variants of Ultimatum and Trust Games will explore in greater depth the degree to which affective and deliberative processes influence decisions in both young and older populations. The field of neuroeconomics is growing rapidly as researchers from many different and disparate areas seek to understand the neural basis of human decision-making behavior. It allows the study of individuals in meaningful social interactions allied to sophisticated methodological and technological approaches enabling investigation at various levels, from behavioral responses to the neural activity that underlie them. This approach offers a valuable method by which to assess how decision-making operates across the lifespan, and this research can have immediate impact in terms of better understanding real-life decisions faced by elderly populations in a variety of important domains.