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George Tertikas

@gtertikas.bsky.social

80 followers 138 following 10 posts

Research Fellow, Max Plank UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research | Medical Doctor

Posts Replies Media

George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

10/10 Huge thanks to my co-authors @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social, @drdanielcm.bsky.social, Magda Dubois, and most importantly Hugo Critchley! Done in collaboration with the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research. @bsmsmedschool.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

9/10 Overall, the findings point to a more precise computational mechanism through which acute anxiety can bias exploration strategies, rather than simply reducing the quality of decision-making.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

8/10 At the neural level, the shift was associated with increased engagement of right superior parietal lobule and frontopolar cortex during decision-making, alongside intact value representations in vmPFC.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

7/10 This was not accompanied by changes in novelty-driven exploration, uncertainty estimates, or prior beliefs, suggesting a selective effect rather than a broad disruption of decision-making.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

6/10 What we found was quite specific. Acute anxiety increased value-free random exploration: participants became more likely to make choices that were less guided by learned value.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

5/10 Components including exploration driven by novelty or information-seeking, and different strategies of random exploration that are less guided by what has been learned.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

4/10 To get at this, we induced acute anxiety in the scanner using threat of unpredictable mild shocks, while participants completed a multi-armed bandit task. This let us look at state anxiety and, with computational modelling, separate exploration into its distinct components.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

3/10 We were interested in how anxiety shapes this balance. Most of the literature in this area has relied on trait measures of anxiety, often with contradicting findings.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

2/10 Every day we face the same dilemma: go with the option we already know is good, or try something new that might be better or worse? Psychologists and neuroscientists call this the exploration–exploitation trade-off, and it sits at the heart of nearly every decision we make.

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George Tertikas @gtertikas.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

1/10 Happy to share that our paper, "Acute Anxiety Selectively Enhances Value-Free Random Exploration Through Frontoparietal Engagement", has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Neuroscience. 🧠 www.jneurosci.org/content/earl... Paper PDF available upon request.

jneurosci.org

Acute Anxiety Selectively Enhances Value-Free Random Exploration Through Frontoparietal Engagement

Motivational decision-making is most adaptive when exploitation of known rewards is effectively balanced against exploration of uncertain alternatives. Trait anxiety influences this balance across ind...

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