Brain changes affect decisions of seniors

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- A University of Iowa study suggested that for some older adults measurable neuropsychological deficits lead to an increased vulnerability to fraud.

Neuroscientist Natalie Denburg said that some individuals may experience disproportionate aging of a brain region critical for decision-making.

"Our research suggests that elders who fall prey to fraudulent advertising are not simply gullible, depressed, lonely or less intelligent. Rather, it is truly more of a medical or neurological problem," Denburg said in a statement. "Our work sheds new light on this problem and perhaps may lead to a way to identify people at risk of being deceived."

The study, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, found that 35 percent to 40 percent of a test group of 80 healthy older adults with no apparent neurological deficits have poor decision-making abilities as tested in a laboratory experiment known as the Iowa Gambling Task.

The IGT is a computerized decision-making test in which participants draw cards from different decks with the aim of maximizing their winnings -- some decks yield good results in aggregate, while others yield poor outcomes.