We are welcoming Dr. Bertalan Polner as a postdoctoral researcher to the lab! Bertalan is interested in the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the estimation of the controllability of the environment, and the impact of these estimates on subsequent learning and decision-making. He will also study how individual differences in controllability estimates (i.e. tendencies to expect more or less control over the world) are associated with mental health

For more information about Bertalan, check out his personal page!

Our study titled “Effect of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on reinforcement learning in humans” is now published online in the journal Psychological Medicine. Here, we examined how LSD affects probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) in healthy humans.

The results reveal that raw data measures assessing sensitivity to immediate feedback were unaffected, whereas LSD increased the impact of the strength of initial learning on perseveration. Computational modelling revealed that the most pronounced effect of LSD was the enhancement of the reward learning rate. The punishment learning rate was also elevated. Stimulus stickiness was decreased by LSD, reflecting heightened exploration. Reinforcement sensitivity differed by phase.

In conclusion, increased RL rates suggest that LSD induced a state of heightened plasticity. These results indicate a potential mechanism through which revision of maladaptive associations could occur in the clinical application of LSD.

The paper can be found in our publications section and well as here. And if you want to know more, please get in touch with Hanneke!