Novelty-seeking and directed exploration scale with dissociable social network outcomes and brain systems in older adults
- 1University of California San Francisco
Abstract
Social isolation and loneliness are major determinants of well-being in older adults. Shrinking social networks and age-related shifts in social behavior and decision-making may increase vulnerability to loneliness. These changes in social decision-making strategies can be conceptualized within an exploration-exploitation tradeoff framework, in which social options with known outcomes are prioritized over uncertain ones. Yet, no study has characterized how complementary decision-making strategies, undirected novelty seeking and goal-directed exploration, relate to social network constructs or are supported by distinct neural systems. These strategies capture distinct forms of decision-making: undirected novelty seeking is driven by the intrinsic salience of novel options independent of expected informational gain, whereas goal-directed exploration involves deliberately sampling uncertain options to reduce uncertainty and optimize future choices. Here, we used fMRI and a novel social bandit reinforcement task to identify dissociable social constructs and brain systems linked to undirected novelty seeking and goal-directed exploration in older adults. Undirected novelty seeking was associated with social network size and with activity of temporoparietal and mid-cingulate brain areas. Goal-directed exploration predicted subjective feelings of social connectedness and was associated with activity of anterior cingulate and prefrontal brain areas. Crucially, choice probabilities from a non-social version of the three-arm bandit task were not associated with social decision-making nor with social constructs. Our findings suggest that, in later life, dissociable social decision-making strategies, when faced with unknown options, rely on distinct neural systems supporting social network size as well as subjective feelings of social connectedness.
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BibTeX
@misc{valtierra2026noveltyseeking,
title = {{Novelty-seeking and directed exploration scale with dissociable social network outcomes and brain systems in older adults}},
author = {C. Valtierra and J. Hogeveen and G. Mace and S. Moreno and A. Ostrand and S. Griffith and M. J. Auil and P. McConnell and J. C. C. Chen and J. Mitchell and G. R. Turner and N. Spreng and A. Gazzaley and L. Pasquini},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.21.753261},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.753261v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Novelty-seeking and directed exploration scale with dissociable social network outcomes and brain systems in older adults
AU - C. Valtierra
AU - J. Hogeveen
AU - G. Mace
AU - S. Moreno
AU - A. Ostrand
AU - S. Griffith
AU - M. J. Auil
AU - P. McConnell
AU - J. C. C. Chen
AU - J. Mitchell
AU - G. R. Turner
AU - N. Spreng
AU - A. Gazzaley
AU - L. Pasquini
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.21.753261
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.753261v1
AB - Social isolation and loneliness are major determinants of well-being in older adults. Shrinking social networks and age-related shifts in social behavior and decision-making may increase vulnerability to loneliness. These changes in social decision-making strategies can be conceptualized within an exploration-exploitation tradeoff framework, in which social options with known outcomes are prioritized over uncertain ones. Yet, no study has characterized how complementary decision-making strategies, undirected novelty seeking and goal-directed exploration, relate to social network constructs or are supported by distinct neural systems. These strategies capture distinct forms of decision-making: undirected novelty seeking is driven by the intrinsic salience of novel options independent of expected informational gain, whereas goal-directed exploration involves deliberately sampling uncertain options to reduce uncertainty and optimize future choices. Here, we used fMRI and a novel social bandit reinforcement task to identify dissociable social constructs and brain systems linked to undirected novelty seeking and goal-directed exploration in older adults. Undirected novelty seeking was associated with social network size and with activity of temporoparietal and mid-cingulate brain areas. Goal-directed exploration predicted subjective feelings of social connectedness and was associated with activity of anterior cingulate and prefrontal brain areas. Crucially, choice probabilities from a non-social version of the three-arm bandit task were not associated with social decision-making nor with social constructs. Our findings suggest that, in later life, dissociable social decision-making strategies, when faced with unknown options, rely on distinct neural systems supporting social network size as well as subjective feelings of social connectedness.
ER -