Document text
Principal Investigator: David Victor Smith
Organization: TEMPLE UNIV OF THE COMMONWEALTH
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $650,575
Funding agency: National Institute on Aging
Project Summary
Older adults are often victims of financial exploitation, which results in annual losses of at least $3 billion.
Threat of exploitation may be greater in those at risk for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD).
While most cases of financial exploitation are perpetrated by strangers, perpetration by individuals within the
victim's social network (e.g., friends and family) is common. Although these observations highlight the social
nature of financial exploitation, we know very little about how neural systems in older adults and those at risk
for ADRD integrate information from the social domain to inform financial decision making. Tasks involving
social information processing evoke activation in the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) and dorsomedial
prefrontal cortex; whereas tasks involving financial decision making and reward processing evoke activation in
the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It remains unclear whether responses within these neural
systems—and connectivity between them and other regions—differ as a function of age and risk for financial
exploitation. We recently demonstrated age differences in TPJ response during social decision-making in the
context of financial exchange (e.g., trust and fairness). We have also shown that the influence of social context
(e.g., presence of a peer) on striatal responses to reward is attenuated in older adults relative to younger
adults. Building on these exciting preliminary data, the goal of the current proposal is to characterize neural
responses during social decision making and reward processing across adulthood and quantify how these
responses relate to risk for financial exploitation. We will recruit a large sample of adults (ages 21 to 80+ years)
to participate in a neuroimaging experiment investigating social reward processing and the interplay between
social context and financial decision making. We will also administer neuropsychological and health
assessments, as well as questionnaires assessing socioemotional functioning and risk for financial
exploitation. Our project will address four aims. We will examine how neural responses to social and nonsocial
reward and decisions based on trust and fairness differ across the lifespan (Aim 1). Although neural responses
evoked by our tasks may be associated with risk for financial exploitation, it is imperative to determine how
such responses interact with sociodemographic factors, cognitive decline, socioemotional functioning, and
health (Aim 2). Notably, our quantification of health status will leverage two understudied risk factors for
ADRD—vascular health and white matter hyperintensities—and relate these factors to financial exploitation.
Finally, we will re-test a subset of participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) two years after their
baseline visit and assess changes in social reward processing and risk for financial exploitation (Aim 3).
Overall, our project will generate new insights into the interplay between social and financial decision making
across the lifespan and individuals at risk for ADRD and start the road to translation by characterizing risk
factors for financial exploitation among vulnerable groups.
Terms: <21 year old><21 years of age><21+ years old><AD dementia><AD related dementia><ADRD><Adult><Adult Human><Age><Alzheimer Type Dementia><Alzheimer disease dementia><Alzheimer risk factor><Alzheimer sclerosis><Alzheimer syndrome><Alzheimer's><Alzheimer's Disease><Alzheimer's and related dementias><Alzheimer's disease and related dementia><Alzheimer's disease and related disorders><Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia><Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder><Alzheimer's disease or related dementia><Alzheimer's disease related dementia><Alzheimer's disease risk><Alzheimers Dementia><Amentia><Anterior><Arteriosclerotic Dementia><Attenuated><Brain><Brain Nervous System><Brain region><Cognitive Disturbance><Cognitive Impairment><Cognitive decline><Cognitive function abnormal><Corpus Striatum><Corpus striatum structure><Data><Decision Making><Dementia><Disturbance in cognition><Economics><Emotional Depression><Encephalon><Ethnic Origin><Ethnicity><Exhibits><Family><Foundations><Fraud><Friends><Future><Goals><Health><Health Status><Impaired cognition><Individual><Level of Health><Link><Nature><Neurocognitive><Neuropsychologies><Neuropsychology><Parietal><Participant><Patient Self-Report><Pattern><Persons><Prefrontal Cortex><Primary Senile Degenerative Dementia><Process><Questionnaires><Rest><Rewards><Risk><Risk Assessment><Risk Factors><Role><Sampling><Self-Report><Social Environment><Social Network><Social support><Socio-economic status><Socioeconomic Status><Striate Body><Striatum><System><Testing><Time><Translations><Trust><Vascular Cognitive Impairment><Vascular Dementia><Visit><Vulnerable Populations><White Matter Hyperintensity><Withdrawal><Work><adult youth><adulthood><age 21><age 21 years><age associated difference><age based difference><age dependent difference><age dependent variation><age difference><age related difference><age related variation><age specific difference><ages><alzheimer risk><attenuate><attenuates><cingulate cortex><cognitive ability><cognitive dysfunction><cognitive function><cognitive loss><depression symptom><depressive><depressive symptoms><differ by age><difference across age><difference in age><economic><emotional functioning><executive control><executive function><experience><experiment><experimental research><experimental study><experiments><financial decision making><financial exploitation><health assessment><health level><information processing><insight><life span><lifespan><low SES><low socio-economic position><low socio-economic status><low socioeconomic position><low socioeconomic status><mild cognitive disorder><mild cognitive impairment><neural><neural imaging><neural mechanism><neuro-imaging><neuroimaging><neurological imaging><neuromechanism><neuropsychologic><novel><older adult><older adulthood><peer><primary degenerative dementia><recruit><response><reward processing><risk mitigation><senile dementia of the Alzheimer type><sex><social><social climate><social context><social engagement><social influence><social involvement><social participation><social role><social support network><socio-demographic factors><socio-demographic variables><socio-economic position><sociodemographic factors><sociodemographic variables><socioeconomic position><socioenvironment><socioenvironmental><striatal><substantia alba><translation><twenty-one year old><twenty-one years of age><variation by age><vascular and cognitive impairment><vascular cognition impairment><vascular cognitive decline><vascular cognitive disease><vascular cognitive dysfunction><vascular contributions to cognitive impairment><vascular contributions to dementia><vascular related cognitive decline><vascular related cognitive impairment><vulnerable group><vulnerable individual><vulnerable people><white matter><willingness><young adult><young adulthood>