Delay discounting in mild cognitive impairment.
BACKGROUND
Patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may make suboptimal decisions particularly in complex situations, and this could be due to temporal discounting, the tendency to prefer immediate rewards over delayed but larger rewards. The present study proposes to evaluate intertemporal preferences in MCI patients as compared to healthy controls.


METHODS
Fifty-five patients with MCI and 57 healthy controls underwent neuropsychological evaluation and a delay discounting questionnaire, which evaluates three parameters: hyperbolic discounting (k), the percentage of choices for delayed and later rewards (%LL), and response consistency (Acc).


RESULTS
No significant differences were found in the delay discounting questionnaire between MCI patients and controls for the three reward sizes considered, small, medium, and large, using both k and %LL parameters. There were also no differences in the response consistency, Acc, between the two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with MCI perform similarly to healthy controls in a delay discounting task. Memory deficits do not notably affect intertemporal preferences.
a Institute of Molecular Medicine and Faculty of Medicine , University of Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal.
Sara
S
Coelho
a Institute of Molecular Medicine and Faculty of Medicine , University of Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal.
Manuela
M
Guerreiro
a Institute of Molecular Medicine and Faculty of Medicine , University of Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal.
Catarina
C
Chester
a Institute of Molecular Medicine and Faculty of Medicine , University of Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal.|b Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences and Centre for Biomedical Research (CBMR) , University of Algarve , Faro , Portugal.
Dina
D
Silva
c William James Center for Research , ISPA-IU , Lisbon , Portugal.
João
J
Maroco
d Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the National Research Council , Rome , Italy.
Fabio
F
Paglieri
a Institute of Molecular Medicine and Faculty of Medicine , University of Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal.
Alexandre
A
de Mendonça
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000523:psychology*; D065786:Delay Discounting / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012201:Reward
Decision-making; Delay discounting; Memory; Mild cognitive impairment; Temporal preferences