AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN THE FORMATION AND USE OF ABSTRACT COGNITIVE MAPS FOR REWARD-BASED DECISION-MAKING ACROSS THE HUMAN LIFESPAN

Living beings construct internal models, termed cognitive maps, that integrate experience and environmental information to support adaptive behavior. These dynamically updated representations span spatial, abstract relational, and social information, enabling flexible, model-based decision-making in novel or uncertain contexts through inference beyond simple stimulus–outcome associations.
This capacity relies on core neural systems, including the hippocampal formation and prefrontal cortical regions supporting memory and executive control. Across development, maturation of pre- and orbitofrontal function and its connectivity with memory systems is thought to enrich representations and strengthen model-based behavior, consistent with evidence that model-based control improves with age.
We aim to investigate age-related effects on the formation, retrieval, and utilization of cognitive maps using a two-day consecutive-session experimental paradigm. By integrating behavioral assessments, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and computational modeling, we examine how developmental and normative aging-related differences in cognitive map use shape decision-making and reflect underlying brain maturation and aging-related neural processes. On day two, participants aged 8–85 perform a non-stationary two-armed bandit task with deterministically switching reward contingencies, enabling modeling of age-related differences in cognitive map–based generalization under uncertainty. The results will elucidate lifespan trajectories of map-based generalization by linking behavioral strategies to neural substrates and the roles of brain maturation and aging in cognitive map formation and retrieval. Extending relational coding frameworks developmentally, this work bridges adult cognitive map theories with developmental reinforcement learning models to identify age-related changes in decision-making and potential sensitive periods for cognitive map development, with implications for age-adapted education.