Age Differences in Striatal Delay Sensitivity during Intertemporal Choice in Healthy Adults.
Abstract
Intertemporal choices are a ubiquitous class of decisions that involve selecting between
outcomes available at different times in the future. We investigated the neural systems
supporting intertemporal decisions in healthy younger and older adults. Using functional
neuroimaging, we find that aging is associated with a shift in the brain areas that
respond to delayed rewards. Although we replicate findings that brain regions associated
with the mesolimbic dopamine system respond preferentially to immediate rewards, we
find a separate region in the ventral striatum with very modest time dependence in
older adults. Activation in this striatal region was relatively insensitive to delay
in older but not younger adults. Since the dopamine system is believed to support
associative learning about future rewards over time, our observed transfer of function
may be due to greater experience with delayed rewards as people age. Identifying differences
in the neural systems underlying these decisions may contribute to a more comprehensive
model of age-related change in intertemporal choice.
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Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14580Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.3389/fnins.2011.00126Publication Info
Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R; Mata, Rui; Radu, Peter T; Ballard, Ian C; Carstensen, Laura
L; & McClure, Samuel M (2011). Age Differences in Striatal Delay Sensitivity during Intertemporal Choice in Healthy
Adults. Front Neurosci, 5. pp. 126. 10.3389/fnins.2011.00126. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14580.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin
Jack H. Neely Associate Professor
Research in our lab examines how motivation, emotion, and cognition influence decision
making and health behavior across the life span. Our research is at the intersection
of a number of subfields within psychology, neuroscience, and economics including
human development, affective science, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics,
and consumer finance. We use a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques
ranging from detailed measurement of functional brain activity (fMRI) and neu

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