

By Ed Yong | July 15, 2009 11:00 am





Bromberg-Martin and Hikosaka demonstrated that even more clearly with a second, slightly different task. This time, the monkeys always received information about their watery rewards and the initial choice of symbol simply determined how quickly this information was provided. After a few goes, the monkeys clearly wanted their info immediately. If the researchers swapped the target that provided the most instant information, the monkeys swapped the direction of their gaze.




Dopamine neurons are thought to be involved in learning about rewards – by adjusting the connections between other neurons, they “teach” the brain to seek basic rewards like food and water. Bromberg-Martin and Hikosaka think that these neurons also teach the brain to seek out information so that their activity becomes a sort of “common currency” that governs both basic needs and a quest for knowledge.

Reference: Neuron 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.06.009

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Comments (10)

  1. oscarzoalaster

    So there is actual objective evidence that curiosity can be as important a desire as food and water! I feel more normal now!!! Thank you!

  2. 5acos(phi/2)

    Nice to know that I’m more normal too! :)
    By the way, does this also explain why I get terribly voracious after long hours of tedious, noncreative tasks, but can survive with little or no food as long as I’m engaging something new, fun and educative?

  3. Mike Olson

    There is a description in Neal Stephson’s latest book, “Anathem,” in which he describes a wine as tasting like drinking your favorite book. I thought that pretty accurately described how I felt about getting info and learning. This study now explains why that is…thanks for posting this.

  4. Henk Langeveld
  5. This is phenomenal. I definitely need to check in here more often.
    This helps explain–I think–why hours fly by, with no hunger for food on my part, when I’m writing poetry, or acting!

  6. JJ

    I collect concepts. I don’t really enjoy doing puzzles like crosswords because, while they are amusing, they don’t seem to teach me anything of lasting value.
    Figuring things out, from the frivolous to the practical, has always been really rewarding for me. Every wrong idea is immediately discarded with relief. After collecting so many concepts, everything in science just keeps getting more exciting because everything is meaningful.
    Young children will not watch programs that do not make sense. Grand masters cannot remember pieces on a chessboard better than an ordinary person if the pieces are placed in a random, meaningless way.
    I still remember gasping when I first saw the Scientific American article about gravitational lensing. Now, when I read about gravitational microlensing being used to detect planets 20,000 light years away, I derive great pleasure tracing the thread over the last 25 years, and I laugh at the professors who asked me why I was wasting my time reading about that. They will never experience the joy in that aspect of the Universe.
    So the more concepts you collect, the more things make sense, and the easier it is to learn more. The pleasure this gives can be nearly as intense as Love, and a kind of love it is. You need not live in a world in which things happen for no reason, and Hell is the impossibility of reason.
    You need to get to a critical threshold for the whole process to become self-reinforcing. Unfortunately, most people never get there, so they think it is weird. They are at the mercy of events that could be foreseen, but they just couldn’t be bothered, and so live frightened in Denial (see current worldwide depression for examples).
    Joseph Campbell said to follow your bliss. It does seem that in life you get what you love… and in the end, that is all you get.

  7. Christopher

    We have no right to use sentient beings for experiments.

  8. Chuck

    I find the popular interest in this type of research to be more interesting than the research.
    Most of us are aware of what types of activities give us pleasure, pain, anxiety, etc… So why do many people feel like they have learned something when some monkeys or rats or a brain image shows what they already know?
    If the monkeys in the above research showed no preference for information in advance, would that change the way you think about how your own brain works?

  9. @chuck

    @Chuck – yes it would change the way I think.
    Before I used to think that my thirst for knowledge was unusual and illogical
    Now i know that it makes sense.

  10. DD

    But wouldn’t they get the same results from cows or iguanas or fruit flies?


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