Risky Decision-making Strategies Mediate the Relationship Between Amygdala Activity and Real-world Financial Savings Among Individuals from Lower Income Households: A Pilot Study

Overview

Journal Behav Brain Res

Specialties Neurology
Psychology
Social Sciences

Date 2022 Apr 6

PMID 35385783

Authors

Ranjita Poudel

Michael J Tobia

Michael C Riedel

Taylor Salo

Jessica S Flannery

Lauren D Hill-Bowen

Anthony S Dick

Angela R Laird

Carlos M Parra

Matthew T Sutherland

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Lower financial savings among individuals experiencing adverse social determinants of health (SDoH) increases vulnerabilities during times of crisis. SDoH including low socioeconomic status (low-SES) influence cognitive abilities as well as health and life outcomes that may perpetuate poverty and disparities. Despite evidence suggesting a role for financial growth in minimizing SDoH-related disparities and vulnerabilities, neurobiological mechanisms linked with financial behavior remain to be elucidated. As such, we examined the relationships between brain activity during decision-making (DM), laboratory-based task performance, and money savings behavior. Participants (N = 24, 14 females) from low-SES households (income<$20,000/year) underwent fMRI scanning while performing the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a DM paradigm probing risky- and strategic-DM processes. Participants also completed self-report instruments characterizing relevant personality characteristics and then engaged in a community outreach financial program where amount of money saved was tracked over a 6-month period. Regarding BART-related brain activity, we observed expected activity in regions implicated in reward and emotional processing including the amygdala. Regarding brain-behavior relationships, we found that laboratory-based BART performance mediated the impact of amygdala activity on real-world behavior. That is, elevated amygdala activity was linked with BART strategic-DM which, in turn, was linked with more money saved after 6 months. In exploratory analyses, this mediation was moderated by emotion-related personality characteristics such that, only individuals reporting lower alexithymia demonstrated a relationship between amygdala activity and savings. These outcomes suggest that DM-related amygdala activity and/or emotion-related personality characteristics may provide utility as an endophenotypic marker of individual's financial savings behavior.

Citing Articles

Adaptations of the balloon analog risk task for neuroimaging settings: a systematic review.

Compagne C, Mayer J, Gabriel D, Comte A, Magnin E, Bennabi D Front Neurosci. 2023; 17:1237734.

PMID: 37790591 PMC: 10544912. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1237734.

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