Anticipation of monetary gain but not loss in healthy older adults - PubMed (original) (raw)

Anticipation of monetary gain but not loss in healthy older adults

Gregory R Samanez-Larkin et al. Nat Neurosci. 2007 Jun.

Erratum in

Abstract

Although global declines in structure have been documented in the aging human brain, little is known about the functional integrity of the striatum and prefrontal cortex in older adults during incentive processing. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether younger and older adults differed in both self-reported and neural responsiveness to anticipated monetary gains and losses. The present study provides evidence for intact striatal and insular activation during gain anticipation with age, but shows a relative reduction in activation during loss anticipation. These findings suggest that there is an asymmetry in the processing of gains and losses in older adults that may have implications for decision-making.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Age by valence by magnitude interaction in post-task cue ratings. Younger adults self-reported monotonically increasing NA for loss cues and PA for gain cues in the anticipatory period. Older adults reported monotonically increasing PA for gain cues, but less significant increases in NA for loss cues. Error bars represent s.e.m.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Between-group _t_-tests of loss versus nonloss anticipation contrast maps (older adults > younger adults; SVC, z > 2.81; P < 0.005 uncorrected). Negative _z_-scores showed less activation for older adults in both the anterior insula and medial caudate. S value for each axial image is listed in the upper right (S = −2 through anterior insula; S = 9 through striatum).

Figure 3

Figure 3

BOLD activation extracted from the medial caudate at anticipation. An age by valence by magnitude interaction shows that younger adults had increasing activation for both gain and loss cues in the anticipatory period, but that older adults had increasing activation for gain, but not loss cues. Error bars represent s.e.m. See Supplementary Figure 8 for full activation time courses.

Figure 4

Figure 4

BOLD activation extracted from the anterior insula at anticipation. An age by valence by magnitude interaction shows that younger adults had increasing activation for both gain and loss cues in the anticipatory period, but that older adults had increasing activation for gain but not loss cues. Error bars represent s.e.m. See Supplementary Figure 9 for full activation time courses.

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