Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety is a common mental disorder featuring excessive worry, fear, and apprehension, significantly affecting daily life. People with anxiety disorders experience persistent and intense anxiety, interrupting their everyday functioning.
Individuals with anxiety often experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including sweating, trembling, tachycardia, and disturbances in sleep patterns. These symptoms vary in intensity and frequency but are generally disruptive and distressing.

Behavior Therapy

Behavior Therapy

Behavior therapy incorporates diverse techniques rooted in classical conditioning principles to address maladaptive behaviors and anxiety disorders. These methods aim to reduce avoidance behaviors, foster adaptive coping mechanisms, and alter associations between stimuli and responses, making them effective in a wide range of therapeutic contexts.
Exposure therapy is a cornerstone of behavioral treatment for anxiety disorders. It involves systematic exposure to feared stimuli, either in real...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Orthography implicitly influences the trustworthiness of onscreen information in the Japanese language.

Acta psychologica·2026

Same author

Beyond bendy joints: number of variant connective tissue features predicts neurodivergent characteristics in hypermobile individuals with anxiety.

Npj mental health research·2026

Same author

Brain age prediction in generalized anxiety disorder using a convolutional neural network.

Translational psychiatry·2026

Same author

AI-driven mental health decision support linked to clinician resilience and preparedness.

Frontiers in digital health·2026

Same author

A hierarchical Bayesian model reveals increased precision weighting for afferent cardiac signals, and reduced anxiety, as a function of interoceptive training.

Biological psychology·2026

Same author

When Collaboration Falters, Insensitivity to How Our Actions Affect Others Drives Inflated Self-evaluations.

Computational brain & behavior·2026

Same journal

Vestibular function drives gaze stability in locomoting macaques.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

Same journal

Region- and layer-specific glutamatergic synapse development in the nascent cortical hierarchy.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

Same journal

Endogenous peptide derived from c-Cbl-associated protein counteracts its inhibitory effect on enteric neural crest cell colonization in Hirschsprung disease.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

Same journal

Drowsiness alters the neural dynamics but not the core computations of multisensory integration.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

Same journal

A Matter of Parameters: Tailored Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Enhances Cortico-Thalamo-Cortical Circuit Resonance.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

Same journal

Proactive visual and motor prioritization differentially scale with cue reliability.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 20, 2026

Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat

Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat

Published on: September 12, 2014

Acute Anxiety Selectively Enhances Value-Free Random Exploration through Frontoparietal Engagement.

Georgios Tertikas^1,2, Magda Dubois^3,4, Tobias U Hauser^3,5,6

¹Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Brighton and University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9PX, United Kingdom George-1993@windowslive.com.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|May 18, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Acute anxiety impairs decision-making by increasing random exploration, not novelty-seeking. This shift in behavior, linked to frontoparietal brain activation, suggests a neural signature of anxiety-related decision noise.

Keywords:

anxiety decision-making exploration–exploitation fMRI reinforcement learning

More Related Videos

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Published on: July 19, 2017

Optogenetic Manipulation of Neuronal Activity to Modulate Behavior in Freely Moving Mice

Optogenetic Manipulation of Neuronal Activity to Modulate Behavior in Freely Moving Mice

Published on: October 27, 2020

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 20, 2026

Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat

Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat

Published on: September 12, 2014

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Published on: July 19, 2017

Optogenetic Manipulation of Neuronal Activity to Modulate Behavior in Freely Moving Mice

Optogenetic Manipulation of Neuronal Activity to Modulate Behavior in Freely Moving Mice

Published on: October 27, 2020

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Computational Psychiatry

Background:

Adaptive decision-making requires balancing exploitation and exploration.
Trait anxiety affects decision-making, but acute anxiety's dynamic impact is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how experimentally induced acute anxiety modulates exploration strategies and their neural correlates.
To differentiate the effects of anxiety on random, value-free exploration versus directed, novelty-seeking exploration.

Main Methods:

Utilized a multi-armed bandit task (Maggie's Farm) combined with fMRI and computational modeling.
Induced acute anxiety using unpredictable electric shocks in healthy participants.
Modeled exploratory behavior using parameters for random exploration (ε) and novelty seeking (η).

Main Results:

Acute anxiety impaired performance and decision consistency, increasing random, value-free exploration (ε) without affecting novelty-seeking (η).
Reaction times decreased, indicating faster, less deliberative responding under anxiety.
Neuroimaging showed increased activation in the right superior parietal lobule and frontopolar cortex during anxiety-driven random exploration.

Conclusions:

Acute anxiety promotes random, value-independent exploration, leading to more stochastic behavior.
Anxiety-induced decision noise is linked to frontoparietal activation.
Random exploration serves as a computational marker for anxiety-related decision-making dysregulation.