The curious brain: dissecting the brain mechanisms of curiosity and reward.
Poster No:
627
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Giovanni Leone1, Nicolas Legrand2, Chris Mathys2, Patrik Vuilleumier1
Institutions:
1Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, 2Interacting Mind Center, Aarhus, Denmark
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Patrik Vuilleumier
Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, University of Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland
Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, University of Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland
Introduction:
Curiosity is a fundamental component of human behaviour. Researchers have distinguished two types of curiosity: instrumental curiosity (IC) refers to exploring the environment to learn its rules, while non-instrumental curiosity (NIC) refers to spontaneously seeking epistemic knowledge in absence of clear utility (Gottlieb & Oudeyer, 2018; van Lieshout et al., 2020). It has been hypothesized that curiosity relief is intrinsically rewarding (Gottlieb et al., 2013; Gruber et al., 2014), but brain mechanisms are unknown. Here, we characterize the neural underpinnings of curiosity and their similarities with reward processing. A secondary objective is to investigate whether reward and/or curiosity boost incidental memory encoding.
Methods:
We developed a novel cognitive task to study reward, IC and NIC at the same time. The task is a variation of a two-armed bandit task where participants have to learn to win rewards, located either behind a red or a blue door (Fig. 1a). Reward contingencies evolve with different degrees of volatility and uncertainty (Fig. 1b). In some trials participants can sacrifice a potential gain to explore the reward contingencies at the next trial (IC condition); whereas on other trials participants can sacrifice a potential gain to know the amount of the upcoming reward: a positive but not useful information (NIC condition). Random pictures were presented along with each outcome, without any instruction. About 20 minutes after the task, we tested recognition of some of these pictures with a surprise Remember/Know/New task, to study incidental learning. 50 participants performed this task while undergoing high-resolution 7T fMRI. We used fmriprep to preprocess the data and SPM for first- and second-level fMRI analyses.
Results:
We compared whole-brain activations related to reward, IC and NIC to those when reward was not delivered (no-reward). This comparison revealed increases in a large cluster peaking in left Caudate Nucleus (CN, T = 9.56, pFDR<0.05) including bilateral ventral and dorsal striatum, a large cluster peaking in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC, T=6.75, pFDR<0.05) including the anterior cingulate cortex, and a cluster peaking in posterior cingulate cortex (T=7.89, pFDR<0.05). Compared to no-reward, IC was related to increases in a striatum cluster peaking in the nucleus accumbens (T=5.02, pFDR<0.05) and a large temporo-parietal cluster (T=6.42, pFDR<0.05). When comparing NIC to no-reward, we found again increased activity of the bilateral striatum, peaking in left CN (T=6.32, pFDR<0.05), bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal gyrus. Testing for shared substrates of reward, IC and NIC, we found that, compared to no reward, these conditions showed overlapping brain activity in bilateral dorsal and right ventral striatum. fMRI results are showed in figure 2. We then investigated the effect of the condition (i.e., reward, IC and NIC) on incidental memory. We found that pictures implicitly associated with both reward (T=2.06, p=0.04) and IC (T=2.14, p=0.03), but not NIC (T=1.42, p=0.14) were better recognized than pictures associated with no rewards. Finally, we found that striatal activity associated reward vs no reward was associated with higher performance on reward-related pictures recognition relative to no-reward related ones (rSpearman=0.362, 95% CI = [0.08 0.57]).
·Figure 1
Conclusions:
Our results show that curiosity relief as a gain of information, either useful or not (IC or NIC), engages the striatum, a key hub of reward processing, confirming its nature as an intrinsic reward, while it benefits incidental learning more specifically when useful for task goals (IC).
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Reward and Punishment 1
Learning and Memory:
Implicit Memory 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Univariate Modeling
Keywords:
Learning
Memory
MRI
Sub-Cortical
Other - Reward; Curiosity
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
·Figure 2
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Gottlieb, J., Oudeyer, P.-Y., Lopes, M., & Baranes, A. (2013). Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: Computational and neural mechanisms. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(11), 585–593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.09.001
Gruber, M. J., Gelman, B. D., & Ranganath, C. (2014). States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit. Neuron, 84(2), 486–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.08.060
van Lieshout, L. L., de Lange, F. P., & Cools, R. (2020). Why so curious? Quantifying mechanisms of information seeking. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 112