Behavioral Social Neuroscience Seminar

Humans and many animals prefer smaller-but-sooner over larger-but-later rewards, i.e. they discount the value of future rewards over time (temporal discounting). Similar to a personality trait, the degree of temporal discounting shows high long-term stability in individuals, and steep (i.e. impulsive) discounting is associated with a range of psychiatric conditions, including pathological gambling, substance abuse and ADHD. Understanding the mechanisms underlying temporal discounting is therefore of considerable clinical interest. In my talk, I will present mainly functional neuroimaging work on the neural basis of temporal discounting and reward processing, with a particular emphasis on model-based approaches were parametric representations of specific choice parameters are examined (e.g. reward value and decision conflict). I will then show data on how such representations are modulated by trait (e.g. clinical status) and state factors (e.g. sleep-deprivation). Finally, different levels of impulse control can be induced by task requirements, and I will show some data on the underlying neural mechanisms. If time permits, I may also briefly show recent behavioural work were we try to relate increased temporal discounting in pathological gamblers and adolescents to changes in subjective time perception.