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Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Apr;6(2):207-17. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq043. Epub 2010 May 25.
When making decisions, individuals must often compensate for cognitive limitations, particularly in the face of advanced age. Recent findings suggest that age-related variability in striatal activity may increase financial risk-taking mistakes in older adults. In two studies, we sought to further characterize neural contributions to optimal financial risk taking and to determine whether decision aids could improve financial risk taking. In Study 1, neuroimaging analyses revealed that individuals whose mesolimbic activation correlated with the expected value estimates of a rational actor made more optimal financial decisions. In Study 2, presentation of expected value information improved decision making in both younger and older adults, but the addition of a distracting secondary task had little impact on decision quality. Remarkably, provision of expected value information improved the performance of older adults to match that of younger adults at baseline. These findings are consistent with the notion that mesolimbic circuits play a critical role in optimal choice, and imply that providing simplified information about expected value may improve financial risk taking across the adult life span.
当做出决策时，个人必须经常弥补认知上的局限性，尤其是在面对高龄时。最近的研究结果表明，纹状体活动与年龄相关的变异性可能会增加老年人的财务风险承担错误。在两项研究中，我们试图进一步描述神经对最优财务风险承担的贡献，并确定决策辅助工具是否可以改善财务风险承担。在研究 1 中，神经影像学分析表明，那些中脑边缘激活与理性行为者的预期价值估计相关的个体做出了更优的财务决策。在研究 2 中，呈现预期价值信息可以改善年轻人和老年人的决策，但添加分散注意力的次要任务对决策质量几乎没有影响。值得注意的是，提供预期价值信息可以提高老年人的表现，使其与基准时的年轻人表现相匹配。这些发现与中脑边缘回路在最优选择中起着关键作用的观点一致，并表明提供关于预期价值的简化信息可以改善整个成年期的财务风险承担。
