中国儿童青少年跨期决策的发展与脑发育机制

跨期决策是指人们对时间成本与收益进行权衡, 进而做出评价与选择, 其研究主要围绕时间折扣, 是指与当前或近期的损益相比, 人们赋予未来损益更小的权重。虽然有争议, 但Mischel等人很早就通过著名的“棉花糖实验”证明了延迟满足能力越强的儿童有着更高的学业成就。延迟满足与跨期决策都是在时间维度上进行的决策。研究者通过脑成像技术发现了成人大脑内支持跨期决策的三个神经网络系统, 但关于儿童的研究鲜有报道。这三大脑网络系统都位于额叶皮层, 该皮层在儿童青少年时期快速发育。通过采用横断研究和纵向研究相结合的实验设计, 对处于跨期决策发展关键期的中国儿童青少年人群进行测查和追踪; 借助神经影像技术, 考察跨期决策发展与脑发育的关系; 整合多模态神经影像技术, 构建可以预测跨期决策能力的脑影像指标。

Brain maturation and improvement in intertemporal choice in Chinese children and adolescents

Intertemporal decision-making refers to the phenomena that people always give less weight to future gains and losses than recent gains and losses. Although controversial, Mischel and colleagues had demonstrated that children with higher delay gratification ability had higher academic achievement later in life through the famous “Marshmallow Experiment”. Both delay gratification and inter-temporal choice deal with the decision-making behavior over time. Previous studies had discovered three neural network systems that support intertemporal decision making in the adult brain, but few evidences had been reported in children. These brain network systems were mainly located in the frontal cortex, which developed rapidly in children and adolescents. The current study aimed to provide a comprehensive survey for understanding the dynamic development of inter-temporal decision-making in children and adolescents in mainland China within the critical period of the inter-temporal decision-making by cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. Neuroimaging data will also be collected to examine the relationship between intertemporal decision-making development and brain mutation, with a special focus on the prefrontal-striatum neural network. Finally, a model with multimodal neuroimaging and behavioral fusion would be proposed to predict the inter-temporal decision-making ability. These evidences would provide services for parents, schools, as well as the society to cultivate and improve the intertemporal decision-making ability in children and adolescents.