Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“Ten euros now” temporal discounting in Huntington disease

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Neurological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

When making decisions, one often faces a trade-off between immediate and long-term rewards. In these situations, people may prefer immediate over later rewards, even if immediate rewards are smaller than later ones; a phenomenon known as temporal discounting. In this study, we, for the first time, assessed temporal discounting in three populations: participants with manifest Huntington disease (HD), participants with premanifest HD, and control participants.

Methods

Using the temporal discounting task, we invited participants to choose between small immediate amount of money vs. delayed, but larger amount of money (e.g., “Which do you prefer: you get 10 euros right now or 50 euros in a month?”). We also measured inhibition in order to test if it impacts discounting performance.

Results

Analysis demonstrated higher temporal discounting (i.e., a preference for the immediate rewards) in participants with manifest HD compared to those with premanifest HD or control participants, but no significant differences were observed in participants with premanifest HD and control participants. Analysis also demonstrated significant correlations between temporal discounting and scores on an inhibition test in participants with manifest HD, but not in those with premanifest HD or in control participants.

Discussion

We suggest that, when making decisions, patients with manifest HD may have difficulties with suppressing the temptation of smaller, but immediate, rewards.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Pringsheim T, Wiltshire K, Day L, Dykeman J, Steeves T, Jette N (2012) The incidence and prevalence of Huntington’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Mov Disord 27(9):1083–1091

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Marder K, Zhao H, Myers RH, Cudkowicz M, Kayson E, Kieburtz K et al (2000) Rate of functional decline in Huntington’s disease. Neurology 54(2):452

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. El Haj M, Caillaud M, Verny C, Fasotti L, Allain P (2016) Destination and source memory in Huntington's disease. J Neuropsychol 10(1):77–89

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. El Haj M, Caillaud M, Fasotti L, Verny C, Allain P (2013) Episodic memory decline in Huntington's disease, a binding deficit? J Huntington's Dis 2(3):305–313

    Google Scholar 

  5. Reilmann R, Leavitt BR, Ross CA (2014) Diagnostic criteria for Huntington's disease based on natural history. Mov Disord 29(11):1335–1341

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Green L, Myerson J (2004) A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychol Bull 130(5):769–792

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Chapman GB, Elstein AS (1995) Valuing the future: temporal discounting of health and money. Med Decis Mak 15(4):373–386

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Frederick S (2006) Valuing future life and future lives: a framework for understanding discounting. J Econ Psychol 27(5):667–680

    Google Scholar 

  9. El Haj M, Boutoleau-Bretonnière C, Moustafa A, Allain P (2022) The discounted future: Relationship between temporal discounting and future thinking in Alzheimer’s disease. Appl Neuropsychol Adult 29(3):412–418

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. El Haj M, Boutoleau-Bretonnière C, Allain P (2020) Memory of decisions: Relationship between decline of autobiographical memory and temporal discounting in Alzheimer’s disease. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 42(4):415–424

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Frederick S, Loewenstein G, O'Donoghue T (2002) Time discounting and time preference: a critical review. J Econ Lit 40(2):351–401

    Google Scholar 

  12. Holt DD, Green L, Myerson J (2003) Is discounting impulsive?: Evidence from temporal and probability discounting in gambling and non-gambling college students. Behav Process 64(3):355–367

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bickel WK, Landes RD, Christensen DR, Jackson L, Jones BA, Kurth-Nelson Z et al (2011) Single- and cross-commodity discounting among cocaine addicts: the commodity and its temporal location determine discounting rate. Psychopharmacology 217(2):177–187

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Chesson HW, Leichliter JS, Zimet GD, Rosenthal SL, Bernstein DI, Fife KH (2006) Discount rates and risky sexual behaviors among teenagers and young adults. J Risk Uncertain 32(3):217–230

    Google Scholar 

  15. Amlung M, Petker T, Jackson J, Balodis I, MacKillop J (2016) Steep discounting of delayed monetary and food rewards in obesity: a meta-analysis. Psychol Med 46(11):2423–2434

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Kwako LE, Bickel WK, Goldman D (2018) Addiction biomarkers: dimensional approaches to understanding addiction. Trends Mol Med 24(2):121–128

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Atkins KJ, Andrews SC, Stout JC, Chong TTJ (2020) Dissociable motivational deficits in pre-manifest Huntington’s disease. Cell Rep Med 1(9)

  18. Adjeroud N, Besnard J, Verny C, Prundean A, Scherer C, Gohier B et al (2017) Dissociation between decision-making under risk and decision-making under ambiguity in premanifest and manifest Huntington's disease. Neuropsychologia 103:87–95

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW (1994) Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition 50(1-3):7–15

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Brand M, Fujiwara E, Borsutzky S, Kalbe E, Kessler J, Markowitsch HJ (2005) Decision-making deficits of korsakoff patients in a new gambling task with explicit rules: associations with executive functions. Neuropsychology 19(3):267–277

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. El Massioui N, Lamirault C, Yagüe S, Adjeroud N, Garces D, Maillard A et al (2016) Impaired decision making and loss of inhibitory-control in a rat model of huntington disease. Front Behav Neurosci 10

  22. Manfré G, Doyère V, Bossi S, Riess O, Nguyen HP, El Massioui N (2016) Impulsivity trait in the early symptomatic BACHD transgenic rat model of Huntington disease. Behav Brain Res 299:6–10

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Paulsen JS, Ready RE, Hamilton JM, Mega MS, Cummings JL (2001) Neuropsychiatric aspects of Huntington’s disease. J Neurol, Neurosurg Psychiatry 71(3):310–314

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Johnson PL, Potts GF, Sanchez-Ramos J, Cimino CR (2017) Self-reported impulsivity in Huntington’s disease patients and relationship to executive dysfunction and reward responsiveness. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 39(7):694–706

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. McDonell KE, Ciriegio AE, Pfalzer AC, Hale L, Shiino S, Riordan H et al (2020) Risk-taking behaviors in Huntington’s disease. J Huntington's Dis 9:359–369

    Google Scholar 

  26. Gray MA, Egan GF, Ando A, Churchyard A, Chua P, Stout JC et al (2013) Prefrontal activity in Huntington’s disease reflects cognitive and neuropsychiatric disturbances: The IMAGE-HD study. Exp Neurol 239:218–228

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Rao JA, Harrington DL, Durgerian S, Reece C, Mourany L, Koenig K et al (2014) Disruption of response inhibition circuits in prodromal Huntington disease. Cortex 58:72–85

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  28. Tabrizi SJ, Langbehn DR, Leavitt BR, Roos RAC, Durr A, Craufurd D et al (2009) Biological and clinical manifestations of Huntington’s disease in the longitudinal TRACK-HD study: cross-sectional analysis of baseline data. Lancet Neurol 8(9):791–801

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  29. Langbehn D, Brinkman R, Falush D, Paulsen J, Hayden M, Group oboaIHsDC (2004) A new model for prediction of the age of onset and penetrance for Huntington’s disease based on CAG length. Clin Genet 65(4):267–277

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR (1975) "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res 12(3):189–198

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Reitan R (1992) Trail Making Test: Manual for administration and scoring. Reitan Neuropsychological Laboratory, Tucson

    Google Scholar 

  32. Stroop JR (1935) Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. J Exp Psychol 18(6):643–662

    Google Scholar 

  33. Miyake A, Friedman NP, Emerson MJ, Witzki AH, Howerter A, Wager TD (2000) The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cogn Psychol 41(1):49–100

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Boyle PA, Yu L, Gamble KJ, Bennett DA (2013) Temporal discounting is associated with an increased risk of mortality among community-based older persons without dementia. PLoS One 8(6):e67376

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  35. Boyle PA, Yu L, Segawa E, Wilson RS, Buchman AS, Laibson DI et al (2012) Association of cognition with temporal discounting in community based older persons. BMC Geriatr 12:48

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  36. Critchfield TS, Kollins SH (2001) Temporal discounting: basic research and the analysis of socially important behavior. J Appl Behav Anal 34(1):101–122

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  37. Kirby KN, MarakoviĆ NN (1996) Delay-discounting probabilistic rewards: rates decrease as amounts increase. Psychon Bull Rev 3(1):100–104

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Bari A, Robbins TW (2013) Inhibition and impulsivity: behavioral and neural basis of response control. Prog Neurobiol 108:44–79

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Noël X, Bechara A, Dan B, Hanak C, Verbanck P (2007) Response inhibition deficit is involved in poor decision making under risk in nonamnesic individuals with alcoholism. Neuropsychology 21(6):778–786

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Wilimzig C, Ragert P, Dinse HR (2012) Cortical topography of intracortical inhibition influences the speed of decision making. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(8):3107–3112

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  41. Friston K, Schwartenbeck P, FitzGerald T, Moutoussis M, Behrens T, Dolan RJ (2014) The anatomy of choice: dopamine and decision-making. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 369(1655)

  42. Salamone JD, Correa M, Ferrigno S, Yang J-H, Rotolo RA, Presby RE (2018) The psychopharmacology of effort-related decision making: dopamine, adenosine, and insights into the neurochemistry of motivation. Pharmacol Rev 70(4):747–762

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  43. Le Heron C, Kolling N, Plant O, Kienast A, Janska R, Ang Y-S et al (2020) Dopamine modulates dynamic decision-making during foraging. J Neurosci 40(27):5273–5282

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  44. Schwab LC, Garas SN, Drouin-Ouellet J, Mason SL, Stott SR, Barker RA (2015) Dopamine and Huntington’s disease. Expert Rev Neurother 15(4):445–458

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Pardina-Torner H, De Paepe AE, Garcia-Gorro C, Rodriguez-Dechicha N, Calopa M, Ruiz-Idiago J, et al. Disentangling the neurobiological bases of temporal impulsivity in Huntington’s disease. bioRxiv. 2023:2023.02.07.527472.

  46. Chiong W, Wood KA, Beagle AJ, Hsu M, Kayser AS, Miller BL et al (2016) Neuroeconomic dissociation of semantic dementia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. Brain 139(Pt 2):578–587

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  47. Kayser AS, Allen DC, Navarro-Cebrian A, Mitchell JM, Fields HL (2012) Dopamine, corticostriatal connectivity, and intertemporal choice. J Neurosci 32(27):9402–9409

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  48. Scherbaum S, Haber P, Morley K, Underhill D, Moustafa AA (2018) Biased and less sensitive: A gamified approach to delay discounting in heroin addiction. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 40(2):139–150

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Lebreton M, Bertoux M, Boutet C, Lehericy S, Dubois B, Fossati P et al (2013) A critical role for the hippocampus in the valuation of imagined outcomes. PLoS Biol 11(10):e1001684

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  50. Boettiger CA, Mitchell JM, Tavares VC, Robertson M, Joslyn G, D'Esposito M et al (2007) Immediate reward bias in humans: fronto-parietal networks and a role for the catechol-O-methyltransferase 158(Val/Val) genotype. J Neurosci 27(52):14383–14391

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  51. McLauchlan DJ, Lancaster T, Craufurd D, Linden DEJ, Rosser AE (2019) Insensitivity to loss predicts apathy in huntington's disease. Mov Disord 34(9):1381–1391

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Morris L-A, O'Callaghan C, Le Heron C (2022) Disordered decision making: a cognitive framework for apathy and impulsivity in Huntington’s disease. Mov Disord 37(6):1149–1163

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nantes Université, Univ Angers, Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire (LPPL - EA 4638), F-44000, Nantes, France

    Mohamad El Haj

  2. CHU Nantes, Clinical Gerontology Department, 41 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 44093, Nantes, France

    Mohamad El Haj

  3. Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France

    Mohamad El Haj

  4. Faculté de Psychologie, LPPL – Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire, Université Nantes, Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, BP 81227, 44312, Nantes Cedex 3, France

    Mohamad El Haj

  5. University of Texas, Clinical Neuroscience Lab, 108 East Dean Keeton St., Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Marie Caillaud

  6. School of Psychology, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Ahmed Moustafa

  7. Department of Human Anatomy and Physiology, the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Ahmed Moustafa

  8. Département de Neurologie, CHU Angers, Angers, France

    Adriana Prundean, Clarisse Scherer, Christophe Verny & Philippe Allain

  9. Laboratoire de Psychologie des Pays de la Loire, LPPL EA 4638 SFR Confluences, UNIV Angers, Nantes Université, Maison de la recherche Germaine Tillion, 5 bis Boulevard Lavoisier, 49045, Angers Cedex 01, France

    Philippe Allain

Authors
  1. Mohamad El Haj
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marie Caillaud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ahmed Moustafa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Adriana Prundean
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Clarisse Scherer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Christophe Verny
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Philippe Allain
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohamad El Haj.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval and Informed consent

The study was conducted according to the recommendations of the Declaration of Helsinki, and the participants gave consent to participate.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

El Haj, M., Caillaud, M., Moustafa, A. et al. “Ten euros now” temporal discounting in Huntington disease. Neurol Sci 44, 2763–2771 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-023-06775-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-023-06775-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation