HEИндивидуална стипендия2024–2026

BETTERCHOICES · Understanding and improving choices: investigating the role of stress-related neuromodulators and psychiatric diagnoses in decision-making and precommitment

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2024-01-01 → 2026-06-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 217 309 €
Участници: 2
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Стресът влияе върху изборите ни за здраве, като например ни кара да ядем вредна храна. Разбирането на стратегии за самоконтрол, при които ограничаваме бъдещите си възможности, помага за подобряване на ежедневните решения в трудни ситуации.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Understanding and improving choices: investigating the role of stress-related neuromodulators and psychiatric diagnoses in decision-making and precommitment

Everyday decisions, such as deciding what to eat or whether to exercise, have a profound effect on our long-term health. For example, diets high in fat and sugar are associated with an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Understanding the different factors which influence these everyday choices and testing the effectiveness of strategies aimed at improving decision making are key public health aims. In this project, we focused on the effect of stress on health-related decision making and how we can make healthier choices under stress. Stress is both costly and highly prevalent with over a quarter of the European workers reporting that their mental wellbeing is affected by stress. The psychological and bodily changes associated with stress can have a detrimental impact on our health-related choices. For example, people often prefer unhealthier food when they are stressed and stress has been linked to higher rates of alcohol consumption and smoking. We focused on the effectiveness of a self-control strategy called precommitment, which involves restricting one’s future choices or adding extra costs to future choice options which do not align with our long-term goals. For example, a person might avoid buying unhealthy food when grocery shopping, so they are not tempted to eat this food at home. Or we might agree to attend an exercise class with a friend so that there are extra costs involved in not exercising, such as our friend’s disappointment if we cancel the appointment. Although precommitment has been shown to be effective for various types of decision making, whether it is an effective strategy under stress was not known. Therefore, the key objective of this project was to test whether precommitment can help people make healthier choices when they are stressed. This would provide a scientific basis for interventions aimed at improving decision making and potentially reduce the impact of stress-related disease.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Everyday decisions, such as deciding what to eat or whether to exercise, have a profound effect on our long-term health. Both stress and a diagnosis of certain psychiatric disorders are two factors which can impact these decisions often resulting in detrimental health outcomes. BETTERCHOICES will investigate the biological mechanisms of this altered decision making and test the effectiveness of a behavioural strategy which aims to improve decision making. In STUDY 1, I will investigate how pharmacological increases in two key stress related neuromodulators - cortisol and noradrenaline - affect participant's willingness to exert effort to obtain rewards (RO1). Additionally, I will test whether precommitment can buffer the detrimental effects of increases in cortisol and noradrenaline action on effort-based decisions (RO2). Precommitment involves pre-emptively restricting one’s future choice set to improve decision making, yet we do not know how or if people use this strategy under stress or in psychiatric disorders. In STUDY 2, I will develop a novel task, the precommit-to-eat paradigm, to precisely quantify the individual effectiveness of precommitment when participants make food choices (RO3). This paradigm will then be used to test the effectiveness of precommitment in patients with a diagnosis of depression or schizophrenia during a non-academic placement in a psychiatric clinic. During the non-academic placement, I will also implement a psychoeducation program to help patients make better health decisions using behavioural strategies, such as precommitment. By using an interdisciplinary approach and combining methodologies from psychopharmacology and behavioural economics, BETTERCHOICES will provide novel insights into how we make decisions under stress. The project will also help to improve everyday decision making both in healthy participants and in psychiatric disorders thereby promoting better health outcomes.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

HEINRICH-HEINE-UNIVERSITAET DUESSELDORF · DusseldorfКоординаторГермания
Kaiserswerther Diakonie Florence-Nightingale-Krankenhaus · DüsseldorfГермания