A new study on rats has identified a part of the brain's cortex that controls learned but not innate fear responses.The results suggest that hyperactivity in a region of the prefrontal cortex might contribute to disorders of learned fear in humans, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders, say authors Kevin A. Corcoran, PhD, and Gregory Quirk, PhD, of the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. Their report appears in the January 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
The above got me thinking:in economics we think of discounting as that which mediates present and future consumption.Could it be fear/anxiety? If people are anxious about the (unknown) future then they may appear to economists as high-discount types. But there is a big difference,for example there are no drugs for having a high discount rate. So should would-be school drop-outs be put on Valium or given a few sessions of CBT ?
3 comments:
This is worth a lot of thought. It could be the case that anxiety effects time preferences differently for preferences over "risky" and "uncertain" outcomes. Perhaps anxiety would lead to a low discount rate for risky outcomes but a high discount rate for uncertain outcomes.
The high discount rate for uncertain outcomes might emerge but if there's complete uncertainty about whats going to happen in the future, surely its rational to have some degree of short-term bias?
interesting name for a medical school
What exact name are you referring to?
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