Department of Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States.
Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC, CA 90033, United States.
Cereb Cortex. 2024 Sep 3;34(9). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae360.
Research suggests that increased financial exploitation vulnerability due to declining decision making may be an early behavioral manifestation of brain changes occurring in preclinical Alzheimer's disease. One of the earliest documented brain changes during the preclinical phase is neurodegeneration in the entorhinal cortex. The objective of the current study was to examine the association between a measure of financial exploitation vulnerability and thickness in the entorhinal cortex in 97 cognitively unimpaired older adults. We also investigated financial exploitation vulnerability associations with frontal regions typically associated with decision making (e.g. dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortices), and additionally examined the interactive effect of age and cortical thickness on financial exploitation vulnerability. Results showed that greater financial exploitation vulnerability was associated with significantly lower entorhinal cortex thickness. There was a significant interaction between age and entorhinal cortex thickness on financial exploitation vulnerability, whereby lower entorhinal cortex thickness was associated with greater financial exploitation vulnerability in older participants. When the group was divided by age using a median split (70+ and <70 years old), lower entorhinal cortex thickness was associated with greater vulnerability only in the older group. Collectively, these findings suggest that financial exploitation vulnerability may serve as a behavioral manifestation of entorhinal cortex thinning, a phenomenon observed in suboptimal brain aging and preclinical Alzheimer's disease.
研究表明，由于决策能力下降导致的财务剥削脆弱性增加可能是临床前阿尔茨海默病大脑变化的早期行为表现之一。在临床前阶段最早记录到的大脑变化之一是内嗅皮层的神经退行性变。本研究的目的是检验认知正常的 97 名老年人中，财务剥削脆弱性与内嗅皮层厚度之间的关系。我们还研究了财务剥削脆弱性与通常与决策相关的额叶区域（例如背外侧和腹内侧前额叶皮层）之间的关联，此外还检查了年龄和皮质厚度对财务剥削脆弱性的交互作用。结果表明，财务剥削脆弱性越高，内嗅皮层厚度越低。财务剥削脆弱性与内嗅皮层厚度之间存在显著的年龄交互作用，即年龄较大的参与者内嗅皮层厚度越低，财务剥削脆弱性越大。当使用中位数分割（70 岁及以上和<70 岁）将该组按年龄分组时，只有在年龄较大的组中，内嗅皮层厚度越低与更大的脆弱性相关。总的来说，这些发现表明，财务剥削脆弱性可能是内嗅皮层变薄的行为表现，这是在大脑老化不佳和临床前阿尔茨海默病中观察到的现象。
