Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA 15261, USA.
Cerebral Microcirculation Section, Laboratory of Functional and Molecular Imaging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD 20892, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2021 Jul 29;31(9):4220-4232. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhab080.
Curiosity is a fundamental nature of animals for adapting to changing environments, but its underlying brain circuits and mechanisms remain poorly understood. One main barrier is that existing studies use rewards to train animals and motivate their engagement in behavioral tasks. As such, the rewards become significant confounders in interpreting curiosity. Here, we overcame this problem by studying research-naïve and naturally curious marmosets that can proactively and persistently participate in a visual choice task without external rewards. When performing the task, the marmosets manifested a strong innate preference towards acquiring new information, associated with faster behavioral responses. Longitudinally functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed behavior-relevant brain states that reflected choice preferences and engaged several brain regions, including the cerebellum, the hippocampus, and cortical areas 19DI, 25, and 46D, with the cerebellum being the most prominent. These results unveil the essential brain circuits and dynamics underlying curiosity-driven activity.
好奇心是动物适应变化环境的一种基本天性，但它的潜在大脑回路和机制仍未被很好地理解。一个主要的障碍是，现有的研究使用奖励来训练动物，并激发它们参与行为任务。因此，奖励在解释好奇心方面成为了一个重要的混淆因素。在这里，我们通过研究无研究经验但天生好奇的狨猴克服了这个问题，它们可以主动且持续地参与视觉选择任务，而无需外部奖励。在执行任务时，狨猴表现出强烈的获取新信息的先天偏好，这与更快的行为反应相关。纵向功能磁共振成像揭示了与选择偏好相关的行为相关脑状态，并激活了几个脑区，包括小脑、海马体和皮质区域 19DI、25 和 46D，其中小脑最为突出。这些结果揭示了好奇心驱动活动的基本大脑回路和动态。
