Delay discounting, cognitive ability, and personality: What matters?

The computational and neural substrates of individual differences in impulsivity under loss framework

Numerous neuroimaging studies have identified significant individual variability in intertemporal choice, often attributed to three neural mechanisms: (1) increased reward circuit activity, (2) decreased cognitive control, and (3) prospection ability. These mechanisms that explain impulsivity, however, have been primarily studied in the gain domain. This study extends this investigation to the loss domain. We employed a hierarchical Bayesian drift-diffusion model (DDM) and the inter-subject representational similarity approach (IS-RSA) to investigate the potential computational neural substrates underlying impulsivity in loss domain across two experiments (n = 155). These experiments utilized a revised intertemporal task that independently manipulated the amounts of immediate and delayed-loss options. Behavioral results demonstrated positive correlations between the drift rate, measured by the DDM, and the impulsivity index K in Exp. 1 (n = 97) and were replicated in Exp. 2 (n = 58). Imaging analyses further revealed that the drift rate significantly mediated the relations between brain properties (e.g., prefrontal cortex activations and gray matter volume in the orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus) and K in Exp. 1. IS-RSA analyses indicated that variability in the drift rate also mediated the associations between inter-subject variations in activation patterns and individual differences in K. These findings suggest that individuals with similar impulsivity levels are likely to exhibit similar value processing patterns, providing a potential explanation for individual differences in impulsivity within a loss framework.

Examining the association between delay discounting, delay aversion and physical activity in Chinese adults with type-2 diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND

The role of physical activity in diabetes is critical, influencing this disease's development, man-agement, and overall outcomes. In China, 22.3% of adults do not meet the minimum level of physical activity recommended by the World Health Organization. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the factors that contributing to lack of physical activity must be identified.

AIM

To investigate the relationship among delay discounting, delay aversion, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and various levels of physical activity in Chinese adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

METHODS

In 2023, 400 adults with T2DM were recruited from the People's Hospital of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province. A face-to-face questionnaire was used to gather demographic data and details on physical activity, delay discounting, and delay aversion. In addition, HbA1c levels were measured in all 400 participants. The primary independent variables considered were delay discounting and delay aversion. The outcome variables included HbA1c levels and different intensity levels of physical activity, including walking, moderate physical activity, and vigorous physical activity. Multiple linear regression models were utilized to assess the relationship between delay discounting, delay aversion, and HbA1c levels, along with the intensity of different physical activity measured in met-hours per week.

RESULTS

After controlling for the sample characteristics, delay discounting was negatively associated with moderate physical activity (β = -2.386, 95%CI: -4.370 to -0.401). Meanwhile, delay aversion was negatively associated with the level of moderate physical activity (β = -3.527, 95% CI: -5.578 to -1.476) in the multiple linear regression model, with statistically significant differences.

CONCLUSION

Elevated delay discounting and increased delay aversion correlated with reduced levels of moderate physical activity. Result suggests that delay discounting and aversion may influence engagement in moderate physical activity. This study recommends that health administration and government consider delay discounting and delay aversion when formulating behavioral intervention strategies and treatment guidelines involving physical activity for patients with T2DM, which may increase participation in physical activity. This study contributes a novel perspective to the research on physical activity in adults with T2DM by examining the significance of future health considerations and the role of emotional responses to delays.

Using rodent data to elucidate dopaminergic mechanisms of ADHD: Implications for human personality

An altered behavioral response to positive reinforcement has been proposed to be a core deficit in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR), a congenic animal strain, displays a similarly altered response to reinforcement. The presence of this genetically determined phenotype in a rodent model allows experimental investigation of underlying neural mechanisms. Behaviorally, the SHR displays increased preference for immediate reinforcement, increased sensitivity to individual instances of reinforcement relative to integrated reinforcement history, and a steeper delay of reinforcement gradient compared to other rat strains. The SHR also shows less development of incentive to approach sensory stimuli, or cues, that predict reward after repeated cue-reward pairing. We consider the underlying neural mechanisms for these characteristics. It is well known that midbrain dopamine neurons are initially activated by unexpected reward and gradually transfer their responses to reward-predicting cues. This finding has inspired the dopamine transfer deficit (DTD) hypothesis, which predicts certain behavioral effects that would arise from a deficient transfer of dopamine responses from actual rewards to reward-predicting cues. We argue that the DTD predicts the altered responses to reinforcement seen in the SHR and individuals with ADHD. These altered responses to reinforcement in turn predict core symptoms of ADHD. We also suggest that variations in the degree of dopamine transfer may underlie variations in personality dimensions related to altered reinforcement sensitivity. In doing so, we highlight the value of rodent models to the study of human personality.

Are adolescent diet quality and emotional eating predicted by history of maternal caregiving quality and concurrent inhibitory control?

The risk for unhealthy eating behaviour, including poor diet quality and emotional eating, is heightened in adolescence and could result in profound and long-lasting psychological and physical implications. Caregiving quality and adolescents' regulatory skills, such as inhibitory control, may play an essential role in the development of adolescent eating behaviour. This preregistered study investigated whether maternal caregiving throughout the first 14 years of life predicts adolescent diet quality and emotional eating and whether potential associations are mediated by adolescents' inhibitory control. In this low-risk community cohort, maternal caregiving quality was observed at child ages five weeks, 12 months, 2.5, 10, and 14 years. At age 14, diet quality and emotional eating were assessed through self-report. Adolescent inhibitory control was assessed with three behavioural tasks and a maternal report. Mediation analyses were performed with structural equation modelling in R. No evidence was found for links between maternal caregiving quality and adolescent diet quality and emotional eating. Higher levels of adolescent inhibitory control predicted better adolescent diet quality. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to investigate directionality, and replication studies are needed in more representative samples (e.g. including high-risk families). Such studies will shed further light on potential links between the history of caregiving behaviour and adolescent regulatory and eating behaviour.

Discounting of delayed rewards: Missing data imputation for the 21- and 27-item monetary choice questionnaires

The Monetary Choice Questionnaire (MCQ) is a widely used behavioral task that measures the rate of delay discounting (i.e., k), the degree to which a delayed reward loses its present value as a function of the time to its receipt. Both 21- and 27-item MCQs have been extensively validated and proven valuable in research. Different methods have been developed to streamline MCQ scoring. However, existing scoring methods have yet to tackle the issue of missing responses or provide clear guidance on imputing such data. Due to this lack of knowledge, the present study developed and compared three imputation approaches that leverage the MCQ's structure and prioritize ease of implementation. Additionally, their performance was compared with mode imputation. A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to evaluate the performance of these approaches in handling various missing responses in each observation across two datasets from prior studies that employed the 21- and 27-item MCQs. One of the three approaches consistently outperformed mode imputation across all performance measures. This approach involves imputing missing values using congruent non-missing responses to the items corresponding to the same k value or introducing random responses when congruent answers are unavailable. This investigation unveils a straightforward method for imputing missing data in the MCQ while ensuring unbiased estimates. Along with the investigation, an R tool was developed for researchers to implement this strategy while streamlining the MCQ scoring process.

Effect of extracurricular tutoring on adolescent students cognitive ability: A propensity score matching analysis

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of adolescent students attending extracurricular tutoring. However, extracurricular tutoring, being a distinct form of education, may have varying effects on cognitive capabilities compared to conventional education. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to conduct a thorough examination of the effects of extracurricular tutoring on cognitive abilities among adolescent students. The study utilized national data from the China Family Panel Study 2018 to explore the relationship between involvement in extracurricular tutoring among students and cognitive abilities. The study included 2567 valid respondents. A binary logistic regression model was built to determine the factors associated with tutoring involvement while controlling for 19 individual, family, and school factors. Furthermore, a propensity score-matched analysis was conducted in order to mitigate potential bias by using confounding variables identified in the previous step. The study results show that participation in extracurricular tutoring can significantly increase the level of cognitive ability of adolescent students, with adjustments made for age, gender, ethnicity, number of family members, net family income per capita, education and training expenditure in the past years, change of residence for enrollment, change of domicile address for enrollment, locality of the current school, class size, hold a position as a class cadre, average daily study time on weekdays, average study time per day during weekends. The findings imply that the government should provide tutorial subsidies to disadvantaged groups of adolescent students, allocate educational resources equitably, and invest more in education resources in less developed regions to foster fair and healthy development of education and improve the cognitive abilities of young students in the long-term.

Differential Neural Correlates in the Prefrontal Cortex during a Delay Discounting Task in Healthy Adults: An fNIRS Study

The phenomenon of future rewards being devalued as a function of delay is referred to as delay discounting (DD). It is considered a measure of impulsivity, and steep DD characterizes psychiatric problems such as addictive disorders and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This preliminarily study examined prefrontal hemodynamic activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in healthy young adults performing a DD task. Prefrontal activity during a DD task with hypothetical monetary rewards was measured in 20 participants. A discounting rate (k-value) in the DD task was determined on the basis of a hyperbolic function. To validate the k-value, a DD questionnaire and the Barratt impulsiveness scale (BIS) were administered after fNIRS. The DD task induced a significant increase in oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) concentration bilaterally in the frontal pole and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared with a control task. Significant positive correlations were detected between left PFC activity and discounting parameters. Right frontal pole activity, however, showed significantly negative correlation with motor impulsivity as a BIS subscore. These results suggest that left and right PFCs have differential contributions when performing the DD task. The present findings suggest the idea that fNIRS measurement of prefrontal hemodynamic activity can be useful for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying DD and is applicable for assessing PFC function among psychiatric patients with impulsivity-related problems.

Individual differences in degree of discounting, Do different procedures and measures assess the same construct?

The present study compared the two most prominent procedures for measuring delay discounting, the Adjusting-Amount procedure and the Monetary Choice Questionnaire (MCQ). Of interest was whether the two procedures measure the same construct. Results obtained from two online samples recruited using the Prolific (N = 150) and MTurk (N = 243) platforms revealed generally similar results for both procedures. Regardless of the procedure, the sample, the reward amount, and whether the discounting measure used was theoretically based (i.e., log k) or was atheoretical (i.e., area under the curve, proportion of choices of the delayed reward option), the degree of discounting on the Adjusting-Amount procedure was highly correlated with the degree of discounting on the MCQ, consistent with the hypothesis that both procedures assess the same construct.

Development of a cortical delay discounting assay: a potential biomarker of externalizing disorders

BACKGROUND

People who tend to impulsively choose smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later rewards are at increased risk for addiction and psychiatric disorders. A neurobiological measure of the tendency to overvalue immediate gratification could facilitate the study of individuals who are susceptible to these mental disorders. The objective of this research was to develop a cortical assay of impulsive choice for immediate rewards.

METHODS

A cortex-based assay of impulsive choice was developed using 1105 healthy adults from the Human Connectome Project, and then cross-validated in two independent samples of adults with elevated rates of psychiatric disorders.

RESULTS

Study 1: Cortical delay discounting (C-DD) was developed using a multivariate additive model of gray matter thickness across both hemispheres. Higher C-DD corresponded to thinner cortex and greater impulsive choice for immediate rewards. It also predicted cannabis use beyond established risk factors for drug use, including familial substance use, childhood conduct problems, personality traits, and cognitive functioning. Study 2: C-DD replicated the association with delay discounting performance from study 1. Structural equation modeling showed C-DD covaried with symptoms of externalizing, but not internalizing disorders. Study 3: C-DD positively predicted future delay discounting behavior (6-34 months later).

CONCLUSIONS

Across three studies, a cortical assay of impulsive choice evidenced consistent associations with drug use and delay discounting task performance. It was also uniquely associated with psychiatric disorders that share impulsivity as a core feature. Together, findings support the utility of C-DD as a neurobiological assay of impulsive decision-making and a possible biomarker of externalizing disorders.

Investigating associations of delay discounting with brain structure, working memory, and episodic memory

INTRODUCTION

Delay discounting (DD), the preference for smaller and sooner rewards over larger and later ones, is an important behavioural phenomenon for daily functioning of increasing interest within psychopathology. The neurobiological mechanisms behind DD are not well understood and the literature on structural correlates of DD shows inconsistencies.

METHODS

Here we leveraged a large openly available dataset (n = 1196) to investigate associations with memory performance and gray and white matter correlates of DD using linked independent component analysis.

RESULTS

Greater DD was related to smaller anterior temporal gray matter volume. Associations of DD with total cortical volume, subcortical volumes, markers of white matter microscopic organization, working memory, and episodic memory scores were not significant after controlling for education and income.

CONCLUSION

Effects of size comparable to the one we identified would be unlikely to be replicated with sample sizes common in many previous studies in this domain, which may explain the incongruities in the literature. The paucity and small size of the effects detected in our data underscore the importance of using large samples together with methods that accommodate their statistical structure and appropriate control for confounders, as well as the need to devise paradigms with improved task parameter reliability in studies relating brain structure and cognitive abilities with DD.

Discounting of outcomes in which immediate gains are followed by delayed losses

Previous discounting research has focused on relatively simple situations (e.g., choosing between immediate and delayed gains, or between immediate and delayed losses) and the relations among amount, delay, and subjective value in such situations are now well established. Many everyday choice situations, however, are more complex, involving alternatives that combine gains and losses. In two experiments, participants discounted a monetary outcome that combined an immediate gain with a delayed loss. Consistent with the discounting framework, the value of the combination was approximately equal to the difference between the (undiscounted) value of the immediate gain and the (discounted) value of the delayed loss. More precise predictions of the relative subjective value of the delayed loss component of a combination were given by the same hyperboloid function that describes discounting in simple choice situations where outcomes only involve gains or losses, not both. As in previous studies, when the outcome was a simple one consisting of only a delayed loss, discounting was not affected by the amount of that loss. Surprisingly, however, when the loss was preceded by a gain, the degree to which the combination was discounted was affected by the amount of the loss. Notably, discounting of the delayed loss component of the combination decreased with the amount of the loss in a fashion similar to that observed with simple delayed gains, where smaller amounts are discounted more steeply than larger amounts. Choice situations involving immediate gains followed by delayed losses pose iconic self-control problems, and the present findings support the application of the discounting framework to these important everyday problems.

Beyond Systematic and Unsystematic Responding: Latent Class Mixture Models to Characterize Response Patterns in Discounting Research

Operant behavioral economic methods are increasingly used in basic research on the efficacy of reinforcers as well as in large-scale applied research (e.g., evaluation of empirical public policy). Various methods and strategies have been put forward to assist discounting researchers in conducting large-scale research and detecting irregular response patterns. Although rule-based approaches are based on well-established behavioral patterns, these methods for screening discounting data make assumptions about decision-making patterns that may not hold in all cases and across different types of choices. Without methods well-suited to the observed data, valid data could be omitted or invalid data could be included in study analyses, which subsequently affects study power, the precision of estimates, and the generality of effects. This review and demonstration explore existing approaches for characterizing discounting and presents a novel, data-driven approach based on Latent Class Analysis. This approach (Latent Class Mixed Modeling) characterizes longitudinal patterns of choice into classes, the goal of which is to classify groups of responders that differ characteristically from the overall sample of discounters. In the absence of responders whose behavior is characteristically distinct from the greater sample, modern approaches such as mixed-effects models are robust to less-systematic data series. This approach is discussed, demonstrated with a publicly available dataset, and reviewed as a potential supplement to existing methods for inspecting and screening discounting data.

Differential Effects of Fundamental and Longitudinal Life History Trade-Offs on Delay Discounting: An Evolutionary Framework

We synthesized life history theory and the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis to form an integrative framework for understanding delay discounting (DD). We distinguished between fundamental and longitudinal life history trade-offs to explain individual and age differences of DD. Fundamental life history trade-offs are characterized by life history strategies (LHS), describing how individuals adjust reproductive timing according to childhood environments, while longitudinal life history trade-offs characterize how individuals make trade-offs between early- vs. late-life reproduction as a function of age. Results of a life-span sample (242 Chinese participants) supported several theoretical predictions: (a) slower LHS predicted lower DD; (b) the relationship between chronological age and DD was U-shaped; (c) the effects of age and LHS were differential. Mechanisms underlying fundamental and longitudinal trade-offs were explored. Regarding fundamental trade-offs, LHS mediated the effects of childhood environment on DD. Regarding longitudinal trade-offs, the U-shaped relationship was more evident between physical age and DD: older adults who were in poorer physical health felt older and exhibited a higher DD. Neither the time perspective nor anticipatory time perception mediated the effect of life history trade-offs. We concluded that DD was a product of two distinct life history trade-offs, reflecting both the trait-like quality and age-related development.

Brain responses during delay discounting in youth at high-risk for substance use disorders

Offspring of parents with substance use disorders (SUD) discount future rewards at a steeper rate on the monetary delay discounting task (DD) than typically developing youth. However, brain activation during DD has yet to be studied in drug naïve youth with a family history (FH) of SUD. Here, we investigate brain activation differences in high-risk youth during DD. We recruited substance naïve youth, aged 11-12, into three groups to compare brain activation during DD: (1) High-risk youth (n = 35) with a FH of SUD and externalizing psychiatric disorders, (2) psychiatric controls (n = 25) who had no FH of SUD, but with equivalent externalizing psychiatric disorders as high-risk youth, and (3) a healthy control group (n = 24) with no FH of SUD and minimal psychopathology. A whole-brain voxel wise analysis of the [Delay > Baseline], [Immediate > Baseline], and [Control > Baseline] contrasts identified functional regions of interest, from which extracted parameter estimates were tested for significant group differences. Relative to control youth, high-risk youth showed stronger activation in the left posterior insula and thalamus when making delayed choices, and stronger activation of the parahippocampal gyrus when making both delayed and control choices (ps < 0.05). Activation in the left posterior insula negatively correlated with both subscales of the Emotion Regulation Checklist, and positively correlated with the Stroop interference effect (ps < 0.05). Our findings suggest possible heritable SUD risk neural markers that distinguish drug naïve high-risk youth from psychiatric and healthy controls.

The problems with delay discounting: a critical review of current practices and clinical applications

Delay discounting paradigms have gained widespread popularity across clinical research. Given the prevalence in the field, researchers have set lofty expectations for the importance of delay discounting as a key transdiagnostic process and a 'core' process underlying specific domains of dysfunction (e.g. addiction). We believe delay discounting has been prematurely reified as, in and of itself, a core process underlying psychological dysfunction, despite significant concerns with the construct validity of discounting rates. Specifically, high delay discounting rates are only modestly related to measures of psychological dysfunction and therefore are not 'core' to these more complex behavioral problems. Furthermore, discounting rates do not appear to be specifically related to any disorder(s) or dimension(s) of psychopathology. This raises fundamental concerns about the utility of discounting, if the measure is only loosely associated with most forms of psychopathology. This stands in striking contrast to claims that discounting can serve as a 'marker' for specific disorders, despite never demonstrating adequate sensitivity or specificity for any disorder that we are aware of. Finally, empirical evidence does not support the generalizability of discounting rates to other decisions made either in the lab or in the real-world, and therefore discounting rates cannot and should not serve as a summary measure of an individual's decision-making patterns. We provide recommendations for improving future delay discounting research, but also strongly encourage researchers to consider whether the empirical evidence supports the field's hyper-focus on discounting.