年老化对风险决策和模糊决策的影响：来自生理性和病理性老化的证据

随着“全球老龄化”时代的到来, 老年人认知功能的下降引起了研究人员的广泛关注, 其中年老化对决策的影响成为了近年来的一个新关注点。风险决策和模糊决策受生理性老化和病理性老化影响的研究显示, 正常老化个体模糊决策能力受损, 但其风险决策能力受老化影响较小; 而病理性老化个体, 以阿尔兹海默症患者为例, 在两类决策行为上均表现出损伤; 此外, 脑神经机制的研究发现在完成决策任务时正常年老化个体纹状体激活模式与年轻人存在显著差异, 病理性老化个体杏仁核与腹内侧前额叶的功能连接亦存在异常。未来的研究应同时考察并比较两类决策类型, 结合外周和中枢神经证据, 深入探讨老化对决策行为及神经环路造成影响的机制。

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

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.