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White matter correlates of temporal discounting in older adults

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Abstract

Temporal discounting, the tendency to select a smaller reward offered sooner over a larger reward offered at a later time, has been associated with a number of real-world decision-making outcomes important for health and wellbeing. Neurobiological mechanisms supporting temporal discounting have been explored among younger participants, and these have considered white matter integrity. However, the white matter correlates of temporal discounting in older adults are unclear. We hypothesized that greater temporal discounting would be associated with poorer white matter integrity measures, more specifically lower fractional anisotropy and higher trace, in older adults. Participants were 302 older persons without dementia (mean age = 81.38, mean years of education = 15.75, 75.5% female, mean MMSE = 28.29) from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a community-based longitudinal study of aging. Temporal discounting was assessed using standard elicitation questions. White matter integrity was assessed with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Regression models were adjusted for the effects of age, sex, education, and white matter lesions. Secondary models further adjusted for global cognition. Results revealed significant associations between temporal discounting and white matter integrity measures (FA and trace) in bilateral frontal, frontostriatal, and temporal–parietal lobe white matter tracts, and results remained significant after further accounting for global cognition. These results suggest that temporal discounting is inversely associated with white matter integrity in old age and that this association is independent of global cognition.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health Grants R01AG017917 to DAB, R01AG033678 to PAB, and R01AG055430 to SDH. The authors gratefully thank the Rush Memory and Aging Project staff and participants. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    S. Duke Han

  2. Department of Neurology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    S. Duke Han

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    S. Duke Han

  4. School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    S. Duke Han

  5. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, 60616, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis

  6. Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis, Debra A. Fleischman, Lei Yu, David A. Bennett & Patricia A. Boyle

  7. Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Konstantinos Arfanakis

  8. Department of Behavioral Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Debra A. Fleischman & Patricia A. Boyle

  9. Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA

    Debra A. Fleischman, Lei Yu & David A. Bennett

  10. Keck School of Medicine of USC, 1000 S. Fremont Ave., Unit 22, HSA Bldg A-6, 4th Floor, Rm 6437A, Alhambra, CA, 91803, USA

    S. Duke Han

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  1. S. Duke Han
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Han, S.D., Arfanakis, K., Fleischman, D.A. et al. White matter correlates of temporal discounting in older adults. Brain Struct Funct 223, 3653–3663 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-018-1712-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-018-1712-3

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