CCNP Seminar: Vanessa Brown (Emory University)

Anxiety is distinctly associated with maladaptive exploration of uncertainty

Speaker: Vanessa Brown
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 20th, 10-11 am EDT (Eastern)

Zoom: https://princeton.zoom.us/j/6397147065

Avoidance is a central impairment in anxiety disorders, but what causes maladaptive avoidance in this population is unclear. To date, empirical data suggest that the uncertainty associated with negative outcomes, rather than the presence of negative outcomes alone, drives avoidance in anxiety. Here, we used the explore-exploit dilemma – whether to explore options with uncertain options versus stay with known choices with certain options – to understand how exploration goes awry in anxiety and leads to avoidance. Across two tasks, we did not find an overall avoidance of uncertainty, manifesting as increased exploitation, in anxiety. Instead, people with anxiety were unable to adaptively adjust exploration, under-exploring when exploration was adaptive and over-exploring when exploration was harmful. This impairment was specific to anxiety and not to depression or general internalizing symptoms. In a follow-up study, we tested whether this maladaptive exploration of uncertainty was distinct from previously established alterations in model-based decision-making in compulsivity. Anxiety was associated with increased model-based planning while compulsivity showed patterns of exploratory behavior distinct from anxiety. These results show a computational dissociation of exploratory behavior among internalizing symptom clusters and suggest that maladaptive exploration of uncertainty is a unique signature of anxiety-related disorders.

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