Frontal, Striatal, and Medial Temporal Sensitivity to Value Distinguishes Risk-Taking from Risk-Aversive Older Adults during Decision Making.

Frontal, striatal, and medial temporal functions implicated in value-based decision processing of rewards and costs undergo substantial age-related changes. However, age effects on brain function and cognition differ across individuals. How this normative variation relates to older-adult value-based decision making is unclear. We found that although the ability make optimal decisions declines with age, there is still much individual variability in how this deterioration occurs. Critically, whereas risk-averters showed increased neural activity to increasingly valuable stakes in frontal, striatal, and medial temporal areas, risk-takers instead increased activity as stakes became more costly. Such distinct functional decision-making processing in these brain regions across normative older adults may reflect individual differences in susceptibility to age-related brain changes associated with incipient cognitive impairment.