A neural network for information seeking

J. Kael White, Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin, Sarah R. Heilbronner, Kaining Zhang, Julia Pai, Suzanne N. Haber and Ilya E. Monosov ()
Additional contact information
J. Kael White: Washington University School of Medicine
Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin: Washington University School of Medicine
Sarah R. Heilbronner: University of Minnesota
Kaining Zhang: Washington University
Julia Pai: Washington University School of Medicine
Suzanne N. Haber: University of Rochester
Ilya E. Monosov: Washington University School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Humans and other animals often show a strong desire to know the uncertain rewards their future has in store, even when they cannot use this information to influence the outcome. However, it is unknown how the brain predicts opportunities to gain information and motivates this information-seeking behavior. Here we show that neurons in a network of interconnected subregions of primate anterior cingulate cortex and basal ganglia predict the moment of gaining information about uncertain rewards. Spontaneous increases in their information prediction signals are followed by gaze shifts toward objects associated with resolving uncertainty, and pharmacologically disrupting this network reduces the motivation to seek information. These findings demonstrate a cortico-basal ganglia mechanism responsible for motivating actions to resolve uncertainty by seeking knowledge about the future.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13135-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-13135-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13135-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().