Life Span Differences in Electrophysiological Correlates of Monitoring Gains and Losses during Probabilistic Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

Abstract■ By recording the feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to gains and losses, we investigated the contribution of outcome monitoring mechanisms to age-associated differences in probabilistic reinforcement learning. Specifically, we assessed the difference of the monitoring reactions to gains and losses to investigate the monitoring of outcomes according to task-specific goals across the life span. The FRN and the behavioral indicators of learning were measured in a sample of 44 children, 45 adolescents, 46 younger adults, and 44 older adults. The amplitude of the FRN after gains and losses was found to decrease monotonically from childhood to old age. Furthermore, relative to adolescents and younger adults, both children and older adults (a) showed smaller differences between the FRN after losses and the FRN after gains, indicating a less differentiated classification of outcomes on the basis of task-specific goals; (b) needed more trials to learn from choice outcomes, particularly when differences in reward likelihood between the choices were small; and (c) learned less from gains than from losses. We suggest that the relatively greater loss sensitivity among children and older adults may reflect ontogenetic changes in dopaminergic neuromodulation. ■

Longitudinal Associations Between Preschool Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder Symptoms and Neural Reactivity to Monetary Reward During Preadolescence

“…From this perspective, our finding that symptoms of DMDD were prospectively associated with an enhanced RewP in response to monetary reward is inconsistent with evidence suggesting that chronic irritability is associated with impaired reward learning (Adleman et al, 2011). However, there is emerging evidence in both adults (Cavanagh 2015) and children (Hämmerer et al 2010) to suggest that the RewP is specific to surprising rewarding events and may not be directly associated with behavioral adjustments. Rather, the RewP may encode and classify whether an outcome is beneficial to a predefined goal (Hämmerer et al 2010).…”

“…However, there is emerging evidence in both adults (Cavanagh 2015) and children (Hämmerer et al 2010) to suggest that the RewP is specific to surprising rewarding events and may not be directly associated with behavioral adjustments. Rather, the RewP may encode and classify whether an outcome is beneficial to a predefined goal (Hämmerer et al 2010). Speculatively, children with early emerging symptoms of DMDD may be hypersensitive to reward and that hypersensitivity may lead to exaggerated stimulusresponse learning, such that they create strong associations between a particular pattern of responses or thinking and rewarding environmental cues.…”

Decision Making Across the Life Span

“…In contrast, other studies have reported reduced neural activity and learning in aged subjects' response to rewards, indicating potential reductions in reward sensitivity Hammerer et al, 2011). Consistent with these latter findings as well as the findings in the present study, a recent paper by Maasberg et al (2011) found a reduction in reward anticipation in aged rats performing a sucrose preference task.…”

Age-related characteristics of risky decision-making and progressive expectation formation

“…Previous studies focusing on the age-related alterations in feedback evaluation processes found both differences and similarities in the morphology of the FRN and related P3 between young and elderly participants [35,36,39,[56][57][58][59][60]. The finding of the present study that the magnitude of the FRN component for the negative feedback (the balloon burst itself) did not differ between the two age groups suggests that the rapid processing of negative feedback valence was equally functional in both groups emphasizing the intact sensitivity to negative events in the elderly.…”