Steinbeis Nikolaus, Haushofer Johannes, Fehr Ernst, Singer Tania
Department of Social Neuroscience, Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04105, Germany.
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Cereb Cortex. 2016 Jan;26(1):32-42. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhu167. Epub 2014 Aug 6.
Human civilization is based on the successful pursuit of long-term goals, requiring the ability to forego immediate pleasure for the sake of larger future rewards. This ability improves with age, but the precise cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying its development remain elusive. The developmental changes could result either from younger children valuing immediate rewards more strongly or because older children become better at controlling their impulses. By implementing 2 tasks, a choice-independent valuation task and an intertemporal choice task, both behaviorally and using fMRI in twenty 6- to 13-year old children, we show developmental improvements in behavioral control to uniquely account for age-related changes in temporal discounting. We show further that overcoming temptation during childhood occurs as a function of an age-related increase in functional coupling between value signals in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and brain regions dedicated to behavioral control, such as left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during choice. These findings can help to devise measures that reduce the substantial costs of impatience to society.
人类文明基于对长期目标的成功追求，这需要为了更大的未来回报而放弃即时享乐的能力。这种能力会随着年龄增长而提高，但其发展背后精确的认知和神经机制仍然难以捉摸。发育变化可能是因为年幼儿童更看重即时奖励，或者是因为年长儿童在控制冲动方面变得更出色。通过对20名6至13岁儿童实施两项任务，即一项与选择无关的估值任务和一项跨期选择任务，我们在行为上和使用功能磁共振成像技术（fMRI）均发现，行为控制方面的发育进步能够唯一地解释与年龄相关的时间折扣变化。我们进一步表明，童年时期克服诱惑的过程，是腹内侧前额叶皮层中的价值信号与负责行为控制的脑区（如选择过程中的左侧背外侧前额叶皮层）之间功能耦合随年龄增长而增强的结果。这些发现有助于制定措施，降低不耐烦给社会带来的巨大成本。
