Time Discounting for Primary Rewards

摘要: Previous research, involving monetary rewards, found that limbic reward-related areas show greater activity when an intertemporal choice includes immediate reward than the options include only delayed rewards. In contrast, lateral prefrontal and parietal cortex (areas commonly associated with deliberative cognitive processes, including future planning) respond to choices in general but do not exhibit sensitivity immediacy (McClure et al., 2004). The current experiments extend these findings primary rewards (fruit juice or water) time delays of minutes instead weeks. Thirsty subjects choose between small volumes drinks delivered at precise times during experiment (e.g., 2 ml now vs 3 5 min). Consistent previous findings, activation was for a two whereas posterior responded similarly whether were Moreover, relative sets brain regions predicts actual behavior. A second finds delivery all is offset by 10 min (so earliest available any min), no differential observed versus more We discuss implications this finding differences secondary