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Risky decision making in Huntington's disease
J C Stout1, W C Rodawalt, E R Siemers
1Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405-7007, USA. jcstout@indiana.edu
Summary
Individuals with Huntington's disease (HD) exhibit decision-making deficits, struggling with a simulated gambling task. These difficulties correlate with memory and conceptualization issues, impacting their ability to learn and adapt choices.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Clinical Neurology
Background:
- Huntington's disease (HD) is clinically linked to impaired judgment and decision-making.
- Previous research utilized gambling tasks to assess decision-making deficits in ventromedial frontal lobe damage.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate decision-making deficits in Huntington's disease (HD) participants using a simulated gambling task.
- To compare the performance of HD participants with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- 14 HD participants, 22 PD participants, and 33 healthy controls completed a 100-trial simulated gambling task.
- Participants selected cards from four decks with varying payoffs to maximize play money winnings.
- Performance was assessed by the number of advantageous selections made after learning deck contingencies.
Main Results:
- The Huntington's disease (HD) group made significantly fewer advantageous selections compared to Parkinson's disease (PD) and control groups.
- In HD participants, advantageous selections correlated with measures of memory and conceptualization.
- No correlation was found between advantageous selections and disinhibition in the HD group.
Conclusions:
- Huntington's disease (HD) impairs decision-making, potentially due to difficulties in learning or recalling win/loss contingencies.
- Findings support models of frontal-subcortical circuit dysfunction in Huntington's disease (HD).
- Decision-making deficits in HD are linked to cognitive impairments rather than disinhibition.