Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China; Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China.
Behav Brain Res. 2019 Dec 16;375:112111. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2019.112111. Epub 2019 Aug 9.
People inevitably make decisions between short-term and long-term consequences across domains like education, health and economics. In this kind of decision, the tendency to discount the value of later-larger rewards with increasing delays is defined as delay discounting (DD). A recent review has suggested that three neural systems which respectively responsible for valuation, prospection and cognitive control (e.g., ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC], hippocampus, precuneus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]) could interact with each other flexibly to have impacts on DD. However, to date, there is little attention paid on the connection between the DD and the dynamic interaction of brain regions.To tackle this issue, we investigate the relationship between the DD and the time-varying connectivity among brain regions in two samples of young adults. Results in sample 1 found that the DD was negatively correlated with the temporal variability of functional connectivity [FC] between the vmPFC and precuneus, and between the vmPFC and the left superior frontal gyrus. And the temporal variabilities of FC between the ventral striatum and right dlPFC, and between the ventral striatum and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex were also negatively related to DD. Furthermore, the main results were well replicated and validated in another sample using different analysis parameters. Overall, our findings reveal that temporal fluctuation of FC within default mode and fronto-striatal circuits can favor for prospecting future, cognitive control and valuation of delayed incentives, and this flexible connectivity patterns generally have association with preference for future outcomes.
人们在教育、健康和经济等领域不可避免地在短期和长期后果之间做出决策。在这种决策中，随着时间的推移，对以后更大奖励的价值进行折扣的趋势被定义为延迟折扣（DD）。最近的一项综述表明，分别负责估值、展望和认知控制的三个神经系统（例如腹内侧前额叶皮层[vmPFC]、海马体、楔前叶和背外侧前额叶皮层[dlPFC]）可以灵活地相互作用，对 DD 产生影响。然而，迄今为止，人们对 DD 与大脑区域动态相互作用之间的联系关注甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们在两个年轻成年人样本中研究了 DD 与大脑区域之间时变连接之间的关系。样本 1 的结果发现，DD 与 vmPFC 和楔前叶之间以及 vmPFC 和左额上回之间的功能连接[FC]的时间变异性呈负相关。腹侧纹状体和右 dlPFC 之间以及腹侧纹状体和背内侧前额叶皮层之间的 FC 的时间变异性也与 DD 呈负相关。此外，使用不同的分析参数，在另一个样本中，主要结果得到了很好的复制和验证。总的来说，我们的发现表明默认模式和额纹状体电路内 FC 的时间波动可以有利于对未来、认知控制和延迟奖励的估值，这种灵活的连接模式通常与对未来结果的偏好有关。
