Neuroscience Colloquium - Can Neural Interventions Change Time Preferences?

The colloquium is sponsored by NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai.

RSVP

Abstract

We often face decisions between smaller sooner and larger later rewards. Typical examples include decision between spending now and saving for the future or between having dessert now and being slimmer in the future. Humans and other animals often discount the future, even in situations where waiting for the larger later reward is the objectively better choice. Choosing larger later rewards can be facilitated through a variety of psychological functions, including willpower, pre-commitment and intertemporal perspective taking. Willpower corresponds to the effortful control of one’s impulse of choosing smaller sooner rewards. Pre-commitment refers to the decision of removing potentially tempting smaller sooner rewards from the choice space and thereby locking oneself into the larger later alternative. Perspective taking may facilitate delay of gratification through the capacity to consider the needs of the future self. While willpower has been associated with the lateral prefrontal cortex, the neural mechanisms underlying pre-commitment and perspective taking in an intertemporal context are less well understood. In this talk I present our recent experiments where we used neuroscientific tools to modulate intertemporal decisions. For example, we find that frontopolar brain regions play a role in pre-commitment, whereas temporoparietal regions underpin perspective taking. The findings suggest that separate pharmacological systems and brain regions can contribute in subtle but distinct ways to increasing the chance of ending up with larger later rewards. 

Biography

Philippe Tobler has a background in psychology and neurophysiology (with studies in Switzerland and the UK).  His earlier work characterized the role of dopamine neurons in the processing of economic value and risk. Subsequently, he identified counterparts of these processes in the human striatum and prefrontal cortex.  As part of his current work at the University of Zurich, some of this fundamental research is translated into clinical settings and they have intensified the investigation of social questions.