RESEARCH
Increases in human life expectancy over the past hundred years will continue to expand the proportion of older adults in the global population, magnifying the relative impact of their health-related and financial decisions. My work is focused on examining age differences, age-related change, and individual differences across adulthood in the motivational and cognitive processes that support learning and decision making using a variety of structural and functional brain imaging techniques (MRI, PET, DTI). This line of research aims to facilitate identification of markers for suboptimal decisions in older adults to identify opportunities for intervention. The long-term goal of this research is to improve the health and well being of older adults by improving decision making at the individual level.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Variability in human dopamine functionZald Affective Neuroscience Lab
Individual differences in susceptibility to investment fraud
(with Brian Knutson & FINRA Investor Education Foundation)
Time and decision making over the adult life span
(collaborators: Corinna Löckenhoff, Samuel McClure, Laura Carstensen)
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Levens, S.M., Perry, L.M., Dougherty, R.F., Knutson, B. (2012) Frontostriatal white matter integrity mediates adult age differences in probabilistic reward learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(15), 5333–5337. pdf
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Mata, R., Radu, P.T., Ballard, I.C., Carstensen, L.L., McClure, S.M. (2011) Age differences in striatal delay sensitivity during intertemporal choice in healthy adults. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 5, 126. link
Mata, R, Josef, A.K., Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Hertwig, R. (2011) Age differences in risky choice: A meta-analysis. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 135(1), 18–29. pdf sup
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Wagner, A.D., Knutson, B. (2011) Expected value information improves financial risk taking across the adult life span. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 6(2), 207–217. pdf sup
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Kuhnen, C.M., Yoo, D.J., Knutson, B. (2010) Variability in nucleus accumbens activity mediates age-related suboptimal financial risk taking. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(4), 1426–1434. pdf sup cover comment
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Hollon, N.G., Carstensen, L.L., Knutson, B. (2008) Individual differences in insular sensitivity during loss anticipation predict avoidance learning. Psychological Science, 19(4), 320–323. pdf
Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Gibbs, S.E.B., Khanna, K., Nielsen, L., Carstensen, L.L., Knutson, B. (2007) Anticipation of monetary gain but not loss in healthy older adults. Nature Neuroscience, 10(6), 787–791. pdf sup
For a complete list, see:
CV | PubMed | Google Scholar Metrics