Abstract

Temporal discounting refers to the tendency to prefer smaller sooner rewards over larger later rewards. Prior research has reported temporal discounting in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We thus investigated, in this study, the relationship between temporal discounting and future thinking in AD. The study included 40 patients with AD and 42 control participants. We invited participants, on a temporal discounting task, to choose between an immediate but smaller or a delayed but larger amount of money (e.g. “would you prefer 10 dollars today or 50 dollars after one month?”). We also invited the participants to imagine events that may happen in the future, a task known as future thinking. Analysis demonstrated a bias toward immediate rewards (i.e. temporal discounting) as well as difficulties to imagine specific future events in patients with AD. Critically, temporal discounting and future thinking in AD were significantly correlated. Generally speaking, a lack of thinking about the future may lead to impulsive behavior. More specifically, decline in future thinking in AD may limit the ability of patients to project themselves in time to consider outcomes of their decisions, resulting in a tendency to devaluate future rewards in favor of more imminent ones (i.e. temporal discounting).

摘要

时间折扣是指倾向于较小的较早奖励而不是较大的较晚奖励。先前的研究报告了阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 的时间折扣。因此，我们在这项研究中调查了 AD 中时间贴现与未来思维之间的关系。该研究包括 40 名 AD 患者和 42 名对照参与者。我们邀请参与者在时间贴现任务中选择立即但较小或延迟但较大的金额（例如，“你想要今天 10 美元还是一个月后 50 美元？”）。我们还邀请参与者想象未来可能发生的事件，这项任务被称为未来思考。分析表明，AD 患者偏向即时奖励（即时间折扣）以及难以想象特定的未来事件。至关重要的是，AD 中的时间贴现和未来思维显着相关。一般来说，缺乏对未来的思考可能会导致冲动行为。更具体地说，AD 中未来思维的下降可能会限制患者及时预测自己以考虑其决策结果的能力，从而导致倾向于贬低未来奖励以支持更迫在眉睫的奖励（即时间折扣）。e. 时间贴现）。e. 时间贴现）。