Evidence map›Paper›PMID 24659960›Full record

ReviewFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience2014

Does temporal discounting explain unhealthy behavior? A systematic review and reinforcement learning perspective.

Giles W Story, Ivo Vlaev, Ben Seymour, Ara Darzi, Raymond J Dolan

Abstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 133 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
133citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

133 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Unhealthy diets, obesity and time discounting: a systematic literature review and network analysis.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2016
    Pooled it
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  7. Article
  8. Approach to personalizing the treatment of osteoporosis.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2026
    Review
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  10. Time preferences and COVID-19 vaccination uptake.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026
    Article
  11. Review
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  19. A hardwired neural circuit for temporal difference learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  20. Article

73 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Giles W StoryDepartment of Surgery and Cancer, Centre for Health Policy, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London London, UK ; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London London, UK.
Ivo VlaevDepartment of Surgery and Cancer, Centre for Health Policy, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London London, UK.
Ben SeymourCenter for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute for Information and Communications Technology Tokyo, Japan.
Ara DarziDepartment of Surgery and Cancer, Centre for Health Policy, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London London, UK.
Raymond J DolanWellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University College London London, UK.

Funding

Wellcome Trust 091593Wellcome Trust 098362
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The tendency to make unhealthy choices is hypothesized to be related to an individual's temporal discount rate, the theoretical rate at which they devalue delayed rewards. Furthermore, a particular form of temporal discounting, hyperbolic discounting, has been proposed to explain why unhealthy behavior can occur despite healthy intentions. We examine these two hypotheses in turn. We first systematically review studies which investigate whether discount rates can predict unhealthy behavior. These studies reveal that high discount rates for money (and in some instances food or drug rewards) are associated with several unhealthy behaviors and markers of health status, establishing discounting as a promising predictive measure. We secondly examine whether intention-incongruent unhealthy actions are consistent with hyperbolic discounting. We conclude that intention-incongruent actions are often triggered by environmental cues or changes in motivational state, whose effects are not parameterized by hyperbolic discounting. We propose a framework for understanding these state-based effects in terms of the interplay of two distinct reinforcement learning mechanisms: a "model-based" (or goal-directed) system and a "model-free" (or habitual) system. Under this framework, while discounting of delayed health may contribute to the initiation of unhealthy behavior, with repetition, many unhealthy behaviors become habitual; if health goals then change, habitual behavior can still arise in response to environmental cues. We propose that the burgeoning development of computational models of these processes will permit further identification of health decision-making phenotypes.

Indexed as

addictiondiscountinghabithealthhyperbolicmodel-basedmodel-freepreference reversal

Identifiers

PMID24659960
PMCPMC3950931

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.