Often, humans and other animals seek information that can help them complete tasks and attain desired rewards. In some cases, however, they seek information driven simply by curiosity and a desire to obtain knowledge for its own sake, even if it does not lead to external rewards.

Researchers at Columbia University, Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins University recently created a new experimental paradigm for studying the neural processes associated with curiosity and the desire for knowledge in mice. This paradigm, outlined in a paper in Nature Neuroscience, allowed them to gain new insights into how the brain represents the value of information regardless of physical rewards.

“We wanted to understand the neural basis of our desire for knowledge—why we read books, explore, and have such a strong drive to find things out,” Jennifer J. Bussell, first author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “Earlier experiments had suggested that the brain responds to information as if it is a reward, to such an extent that even the exact same neurons in the brain’s reward centers respond to predictions of juice and information.”