Episodic future thinking and intertemporal decision making in at-risk state of Alzheimer's Disease

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Frank Jessen
• Subject Area: Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 259758302

Episodic future thinking refers to the imagination of personal future events. The neuronal systems underlying episodic future thinking are those that mediate episodic memory. Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is characterized by very early damage of these neuronal systems. Subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), defined by objective memory impairment, but intact activities of daily living, already display impaired epsiodic future thinking. In the present proposal episodic future thinking will be studied in subjects with MCI and in subjects with purely subjective memory impairment, but still normal cognition (subjective memory impairment, SMI). While MCI is an established at-risk condition for AD with impairment, recent studies suggest that SMI is a still fully compensated at-risk condition for AD. The hypothesis will be tested that subjects with MCI have impaired epsiodic future thinking, while subjects with SMI still show normal (compensated) performance. To study underlying neuronal mechanisms, functional MRI will be applied during epsiodic future memory in these subjects. Episodic future thinking modulates the subjective value of future consequences of decisions (intertemporal decisions). The association of a future reward with a personal relevant event usually increases the subjective value of the future reward. The ability of episodic future thinking is therefore cruical for decisions with future consequences. It is of major relevance to understand at which point in time during the development of AD the modulation of decision by episodic future thinking is impaired. This is of great importance for personal decisions in the early phase of AD and for informed consent procedures. In the third part of the proposal, effects of epsiodic future thinking on intertemporal decisions and the underlying neuronal mechanisms will be studied in the respective patient groups.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Persons: Dr. Xiaochen Hu, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Bernd Weber