Variability in Nucleus Accumbens Activity Mediates Age-related Suboptimal Financial Risk Taking

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2010 Jan 29

PMID 20107069

Citations 117

Authors

Gregory R Samanez-Larkin

Camelia M Kuhnen

Daniel J Yoo

Brian Knutson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

As human life expectancy continues to rise, financial decisions of aging investors may have an increasing impact on the global economy. In this study, we examined age differences in financial decisions across the adult life span by combining functional neuroimaging with a dynamic financial investment task. During the task, older adults made more suboptimal choices than younger adults when choosing risky assets. This age-related effect was mediated by a neural measure of temporal variability in nucleus accumbens activity. These findings reveal a novel neural mechanism by which aging may disrupt rational financial choice.

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