Decision Making Study in Young and Middle-Aged Adults: Part II
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2018-05-15
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Financial decisions are made during pre-retirement age that can influence financial
well-being for the rest of an individual's life. This proposal aims to construct a more
comprehensive model of the specific psychological and neural mechanisms that support
financial decisions in young adulthood and late middle age. In Part 1 of this study (covered
in Institutional Review Board (IRB) # 141812), middle-age and young adults complete basic
cognitive, motivational, and decision making tasks and are studied with functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine the relation between neural circuit activation and
individual and age-related differences in decision making. In part II of the study, aspects
of dopamine functioning are studied using positron emission tomography (PET) scanning to
determine whether individual differences in dopamine functions are related to the
decision-making and fMRI measures collected in Part 1 of the study. Dopamine measures include
baseline D2 receptor availability, amphetamine induced dopamine release and dopamine
transporter (DAT) levels, which provides a more comprehensive evaluation of dopamine
functions than in prior studies linking individual differences in dopamine to behavioral,
cognitive or decision-making traits.