The study of intertemporal decision-making of mild cognitive impairment patients / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore whether the ability of intertemporal choice is impaired in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Methods Twenty-seven patients with mild cognitive impairment and thirty-five healthy controls were recruited in this study. All subjects completed the " delay-discounting" task and the delayed discount rate (K value) was used to evaluate the patients' decision-making ability. Results (1) The delay discount rate(median=0. 0256,P25=0. 016,P75=0. 100) in mild cognitive impairment patients was higher than that of healthy cotrols(median =0. 006,P25=0. 0025,P75=0. 016). There was significant difference in K-value between the two groups ( Z=-2. 988,P<0. 01). ( 2) Spearman correlation analysis showed that the significant negatively correlation between K-value and digital span forward test (r=-0. 389, P=0. 045) in mild cognitive impairment group. Conclusion The ability of intertemporal choices is impaired in patients with mild cognitive impairment and negatively correlated with attention function.