TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural circuitry of information seeking
AU - Bromberg-Martin, Ethan S.
AU - Monosov, Ilya E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under Award Numbers R01MH110594 and R 01MH116937 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/10
Y1 - 2020/10
N2 - Humans and animals navigate uncertain environments by seeking information about the future. Remarkably, we often seek information even when it has no instrumental value for aiding our decisions — as if the information is a source of value in its own right. In recent years, there has been a flourishing of research into these non-instrumental information preferences and their implementation in the brain. Individuals value information about uncertain future rewards, and do so for multiple reasons, including valuing resolution of uncertainty and overweighting desirable information. The brain motivates this information seeking by tapping into some of the same circuitry as primary rewards like food and water. However, it also employs cortex and basal ganglia circuitry that predicts and values information distinctly from primary reward. Uncovering how these circuits cooperate will be fundamental to understanding information seeking and motivated behavior as a whole, in our increasingly complex and information-rich world.
AB - Humans and animals navigate uncertain environments by seeking information about the future. Remarkably, we often seek information even when it has no instrumental value for aiding our decisions — as if the information is a source of value in its own right. In recent years, there has been a flourishing of research into these non-instrumental information preferences and their implementation in the brain. Individuals value information about uncertain future rewards, and do so for multiple reasons, including valuing resolution of uncertainty and overweighting desirable information. The brain motivates this information seeking by tapping into some of the same circuitry as primary rewards like food and water. However, it also employs cortex and basal ganglia circuitry that predicts and values information distinctly from primary reward. Uncovering how these circuits cooperate will be fundamental to understanding information seeking and motivated behavior as a whole, in our increasingly complex and information-rich world.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089813399&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.006
DO - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.006
M3 - Review article
C2 - 33681428
AN - SCOPUS:85089813399
SN - 2352-1546
VL - 35
SP - 62
EP - 70
JO - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
JF - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
ER -