ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2014, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (4): 668-676.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2014.00668

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Effects of Aging on Decision-making under Risk and Decision-making under Ambiguity: Evidences from Physiological and Pathological Aging

YU Jing;RAO Li-Lin   

  1. (1 Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China) (2 Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China)
  • Received:2013-09-18 Online:2014-04-15 Published:2014-04-15
  • Contact: YU Jing

Abstract:

The world is aging at its fastest rate ever. There are raising concerns on older adults’ cognitive declining. The effects of aging on decision-making becomes one new focus recent years. Recent studies on decision-making from the aspects of physiological aging, pathological aging and its brain mechanisms showed that normal aging demonstrated impaired decision-making under ambiguity but intact decision-making under risk, whereas the pathological aging individuals, like Alzheimer’s disease patients, demonstrated impairment of both kinds of decision-making on behaviors and brain functions. Future research needs to use multiple measures of decision-making in the same study and to combine both peripheral and central measures to investigate the aging effect on the behavior and neuro-circuits of decision-making.

Key words: decision-making, aging, neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, funcational magnetic resonance imaging