A Novel Method to Improve Decision-Making in Young Adults and Adolescents

描述(由申请人提供)：几项研究报告称，在最广泛使用的实验性决策任务--爱荷华州赌博任务(IGT)上，男性的表现优于女性。男性的优势被认为是由于IGT期间前额叶皮质(RFC)区域激活的性别差异。PET图像显示，在IGT过程中，女性激活左侧内侧眶前额叶皮质(ORB)，而男性激活右侧眼眶前额叶、右侧顶叶和右侧背外侧前额叶(DL RFC，BA 9，10)。有趣的是，在讨论个人道德(PM)困境时，在两性中，BA9区和BA9区的内侧区和外侧区都被双侧激活。我们最近发现，当女性在IGT中间歇性地考虑PM难题时，她们的表现会提高到男性的水平。结果表明，在执行这两项任务时，PFC电路的使用发生了变化。在女性中IGT表现和嗅觉能力测试表现之间的相关性的变化证实了这一点。数据表明，决策中的性别差异并不是根深蒂固的，而是可以被发生这种差异的认知/神经环境所改变的。如果这种新的决策增强效应要在未来得到实际应用，就必须首先证明这种效应具有剩余的力量，即在选择行为之前仔细考虑道德困境可以改善决策。本研究旨在确定(1)在决策之前对个人道德困境的深思熟虑是否会提高绩效，即在正常的年轻人中是否存在启动效应，如果是，启动效应持续多长时间？(2)同时或事先考虑个人道德困境是否会改善青少年参与者的IGT表现。我们实验室公布的数据显示，与成年人相比，青少年在IGT上的表现较差。这些数据提供了比较增强效果结果的基线。研究与公共健康的相关性：这项研究将提供信息，提高我们对决策灵活性的认识，以及如何通过改变认知/神经环境来改善决策。这项拟议的研究侧重于年龄范围最大的年轻人和青少年，他们因做出与滥用物质有关的糟糕决定而产生持久的神经认知影响的潜在风险最高。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): . Several studies report that males out-perform females on the most widely used experimental decision- making task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The male advantage is thought to be due to sex differences in regional activation of prefrontal cortex (RFC) during IGT performance. PET imagery shows that females activate left medial orbital prefrontal cortex (ORB) during IGT performance; while males activate right lateral ORB, right parietal lobe, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DL RFC, BA 9,10). Interestingly, in both genders, medial and lateral BA 9,10 regions are bilaterally activated during deliberation of Personal Moral (PM) dilemmas. We have recently shown that females' performance improves to the level of males when they intermittently deliberate PM dilemmas during performance of the IGT. The results suggested that there was a shift in the utilization of PFC circuitry while performing the two tasks. This was substantiated by changes among females in correlations between IGT performance and performance on olfactory ability tests. The data indicate that sex differences in decision-making are not hardwired but are modifiable by the cognitive/neural contexts in which they occur If this novel decision-enhancing effect is to have practical future applications, it must first be shown that the effect has residual power, i.e. that deliberation of moral dilemmas prior to choice behavior can improve the decision-making. The proposed studies are designed to determine (1) if deliberation of personal moral dilemmas prior to decision-making improves performance, i.e. is there a priming effect in normal young adults and, if so, what is its duration? (Preliminary data show that there is a priming effect) and (2) if either concurrent or prior deliberations of personal moral dilemmas improve IGT performance in adolescent participants. Published data from our lab show that that adolescents perform poorly on the IGT relative to adults. Those data provide a baseline against which to compare the results of the enhancement effect. Relevance of Research to Public Health: This study will produce information that will advance our knowledge of the flexibility of decision-making and how it may be improved by changing cognitive/neural contexts. The proposed study focuses on young adults and adolescents in the age range with the highest potential risk for lasting neurocognitive effects of making poor decisions relative to substances of abuse.