Di Rosa Elisa, Mapelli Daniela, Arcara Giorgio, Amodio Piero, Tamburin Stefano, Schiff Sami
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy; Human Inspired Technologies Research Center, University of Padova, Via Venezia 12, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Neurosci Lett. 2017 Feb 15;640:93-98. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2017.01.021. Epub 2017 Jan 16.
Several pieces of evidence have highlighted the presence of an age-related decline in risky decision-making (DM), but the reason of this decline is still unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neural correlates of feedback processing in risky DM. Twenty-one younger (age <50 years) and 15 older (age >50 years) adults were tested with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) during Event Related Potentials (ERP) recording. The analysis was focused on the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3, two ERP components that represent different stages of feedback processing. Behavioral results revealed that older adults, despite showing a significant learning trend, completed the IGT with a gain of a smaller amount of money compared to the younger ones. ERP results revealed that while the FRN response was comparable in the two groups, the P3 amplitude was significantly reduced after negative feedback in older adults, compared with the younger ones. Furthermore, the difference in the P3 amplitude evoked by positive and negative feedback was significantly correlated with age. Hence, the present findings suggest that older adults seem to be less willing to shift attention from positive to negative information, and that this relevant change in the later stages of feedback processing could be the cause of a poor performance in risky DM contexts.
多项证据表明，冒险决策（DM）存在与年龄相关的下降，但这种下降的原因仍不清楚。本研究的目的是调查冒险决策中反馈处理的神经关联。在事件相关电位（ERP）记录期间，对21名年轻人（年龄<50岁）和15名老年人（年龄>50岁）进行了爱荷华赌博任务（IGT）测试。分析集中在反馈相关负波（FRN）和P3上，这两个ERP成分代表反馈处理的不同阶段。行为结果显示，尽管老年人表现出显著的学习趋势，但与年轻人相比，他们完成IGT时获得的金钱收益较少。ERP结果显示，虽然两组的FRN反应相当，但与年轻人相比，老年人在负反馈后P3波幅显著降低。此外，正负反馈诱发的P3波幅差异与年龄显著相关。因此，本研究结果表明，老年人似乎不太愿意将注意力从积极信息转移到消极信息上，而反馈处理后期的这种相关变化可能是冒险决策情境中表现不佳的原因。
