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

描述（由申请人提供）：几项研究报告说，在最广泛使用的实验决策任务--爱荷华州赌博任务（IGT）中，男性的表现优于女性。男性的优势被认为是由于IGT表现期间前额叶皮层（RFC）区域激活的性别差异。PET图像显示，女性在IGT表现期间激活左内侧眶前额叶皮质（ORB）;而男性激活右外侧ORB、右顶叶和右背外侧前额叶皮质（DL RFC，BA 9，10）。有趣的是，在两种性别，内侧和外侧BA 9，10区域是双边激活的审议过程中的个人道德（PM）的困境。我们最近表明，女性的性能提高到男性的水平时，他们间歇性地审议PM困境期间的IGT性能。结果表明，在执行这两项任务时，PFC电路的利用率发生了变化。这一点得到证实的变化，女性之间的相关性IGT的性能和性能的嗅觉能力测试。数据表明，决策中的性别差异不是硬连线的，而是可以通过它们发生的认知/神经环境来修改的。如果这种新的决策增强效应要在未来得到实际应用，必须首先证明这种效应具有剩余功率，即在选择行为之前对道德困境进行审议可以改善决策。拟议的研究旨在确定（1）如果审议个人的道德困境之前，决策提高性能，即是否有一个启动效应在正常的年轻人，如果是这样，它的持续时间是什么？（初步数据显示，有一个启动效应）和（2）如果同时或事先审议的个人道德困境改善IGT的表现在青少年参与者。我们实验室公布的数据显示，青少年在IGT方面的表现不如成年人。这些数据为比较增强效应的结果提供了基线。研究对公共卫生的相关性：这项研究将产生信息，将推进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的灵活性。拟议的研究重点是年龄范围内的年轻人和青少年，他们对滥用药物做出错误决定的持久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.