Drug may help older people make decisions

A DRUG widely used to treat Parkinson’s diseas may help older people with decision-making, research suggests.

Indecisiveness 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.

That, in turn, implicates dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward responses and Parkinson’s disease.

A team from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London 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 someone in their twenties.