Despite advances in understanding the consequences of age-related episodic memory decline for future simulation, much remains unknown regarding changes in the neural underpinnings of future thinking with age. We used a repetition suppression paradigm to explore age-related changes in the neural correlates of emotional future simulation. Younger and older adults simulated positive, negative, and neutral future events either 2 or 5 times. Reductions in neural activity for events simulated 5 versus 2 times (i.e., repetition suppression) identify brain regions responsive to the specific emotion of simulated events. Critically, older adults showed greater repetition suppression than younger adults in the temporal pole for negative simulations, and the cuneus for positive simulations. These findings suggest that older adults distance themselves from negative future possibilities by thinking about them in a more semantic way, consistent with the view that older adults down-regulate negative affect and up-regulate positive affect. More broadly this study increases our understanding of the impact of aging on the neural underpinnings of episodic future simulation.

中文翻译：

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情绪未来模拟中神经活动重复抑制的年龄相关变化

尽管在理解与年龄相关的情景记忆衰退对未来模拟的后果方面取得了进展，但关于未来思维的神经基础随着年龄的增长而发生的变化仍有很多未知。我们使用重复抑制范式来探索情绪未来模拟的神经关联中与年龄相关的变化。年轻人和老年人模拟积极、消极和中性的未来事件 2 或 5 次。5 次对 2 次模拟事件的神经活动减少（即重复抑制）识别对模拟事件的特定情绪有反应的大脑区域。关键的是，在消极模拟的颞极和积极模拟的楔骨中，老年人表现出比年轻人更大的重复抑制。这些发现表明，老年人通过以更语义化的方式思考未来的负面可能性，从而将自己与负面的未来可能性拉开距离，这与老年人下调负面情绪和上调正面情绪的观点一致。更广泛地说，这项研究增加了我们对衰老对未来情景模拟的神经基础的影响的理解。