Incentive learning and decision making in the aging brain

描述（由申请人提供）：随着老年人比例继续以前所未有的速度增长，老年人可能需要越来越独立地做出与健康和财务有关的决定。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有必要。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），这可能对财务决策产生特定的影响（例如，老年人通常可能对潜在负面结果的警告信号不太敏感）。尽管这些情感偏好对于调节情绪体验和优化幸福感可能是健康和适应性的，但它们可能对金融学习和决策产生有害影响。本研究的主要目的是利用行为测量和功能磁共振成像来研究激励学习和基于激励的决策的年龄差异。本研究的具体目的是：(1)研究终生强化效价对激励加工的影响；(2)研究老年人在更多的激励加工中是否表现出同样的效价不对称

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.