Drug may help elderly make up their minds

Poor decision-making is a recognised problem of ageing that stems from an inability to learn from experiences. Part of the decision-making process involves learning to predict the likelihood of a rewarding outcome.

Brain chemical dopamine is associated both with reward responses and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Rumana Chowdhury, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, said: “We found that when we treated older people who were particularly bad at making decisions with a drug that increases dopamine in the brain, their ability to learn from rewards improved to a level comparable to somebody in their twenties and enabled them to make better decisions.”

The team, who report their findings in the journal Nature Neuroscience, used brain imaging to study decision-making in 32 volunteers aged in their seventies.