Using future thinking to reduce temporal discounting: Under what circumstances are the medial temporal lobes critical?

ABSTRACT: The capacity to envision the future plays an important role in many aspects of cognition, including our ability to make optimal, adaptive choices. Past work has shown that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is necessary for decisions that draw on episodic future thinking. By contrast, little is known about the role of the MTL in decisions that draw on semantic future thinking. Accordingly, the present study investigated whether the MTL contributes to one form of decision making, namely intertemporal choice, when such decisions depend on semantic consideration of the future. In an intertemporal choice task, participants must select either a smaller amount of money that is available in the present or a larger amount of money that would be available at a future date. Amnesic individuals with MTL

SUBMITTER: Palombo DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5073810 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature