Department of Neuroscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida, Gainesville, United States.
Elife. 2019 Apr 24;8:e46174. doi: 10.7554/eLife.46174.
Across species, aging is associated with an increased ability to choose delayed over immediate gratification. These experiments used young and aged rats to test the role of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in intertemporal decision making. An optogenetic approach was used to inactivate the BLA in young and aged rats at discrete time points during choices between levers that yielded a small, immediate vs. a large, delayed food reward. BLA inactivation just prior to decisions attenuated impulsive choice in both young and aged rats. In contrast, inactivation during receipt of the small, immediate reward increased impulsive choice in young rats but had no effect in aged rats. BLA inactivation during the delay or intertrial interval had no effect at either age. These data demonstrate that the BLA plays multiple, temporally distinct roles during intertemporal choice, and show that the contribution of BLA to choice behavior changes across the lifespan.
在不同物种中，衰老与选择延迟满足而非即时满足的能力增强有关。这些实验使用年轻和老年大鼠来测试基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）在跨时决策中的作用。在年轻和老年大鼠进行选择时，使用光遗传学方法在选择杆上产生小的即时与大的延迟食物奖励之间的离散时间点使 BLA 失活。在决策之前使 BLA 失活可减轻年轻和老年大鼠的冲动性选择。相比之下，在获得小的即时奖励时使 BLA 失活会增加年轻大鼠的冲动性选择，但对老年大鼠没有影响。在延迟或试验间隔期间使 BLA 失活在两个年龄段均无影响。这些数据表明，BLA 在跨时选择中起多种，时间上不同的作用，并表明 BLA 对选择行为的贡献随年龄而变化。
