{"id":89922,"date":"2015-02-12T11:52:27","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T16:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=89922"},"modified":"2015-02-27T10:09:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T15:09:53","slug":"curious-monkeys-share-our-thirst-for-knowledge-89922","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/curious-monkeys-share-our-thirst-for-knowledge-89922\/","title":{"rendered":"Curious monkeys share our thirst for knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Monkeys are notoriously curious, and new research has quantified just how eager they are to gain new information, even if there are not immediate benefits. The findings offer insights into how a certain part of the brain shared by monkeys and humans plays a role in decision making, and perhaps even in some disorders and addictions in humans.<\/p>\n<p>The study, by researchers at the URochester and Columbia University, shows that rhesus macaques have such robust curiosity that they are willing to give up a surprisingly large portion of a potential prize in order to quickly find out if they selected the winning option at a game of chance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kKoNMYE9Bgs?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like buying a lottery ticket that you can scratch off and find out if you win immediately, or you can buy one that has a drawing after the evening news,\u201d explained Benjamin Hayden, co-senior author of the study and professor in brain and cognitive sciences at the URochester. \u201cRegardless, you won\u2019t get the money any more quickly, or in the case of the monkeys, they won\u2019t get the squirt of water any sooner. They will just find out if they selected the winning option.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the study published in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/journal\/08966273\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Neuron<\/em><\/a>, monkeys were presented with a video gambling task in which they consistently chose to learn in advance if they picked the winning option. The monkeys did not receive their prize any sooner, which was a measure of juice or water; they were simply informed immediately if they selected a winner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen it\u2019s simply a choice between getting the information earlier or not, the monkeys show a pretty strong preference for getting it earlier. But what we really wanted to do is quantify this preference,\u201d said first author and lead researcher Tommy Blanchard, a Ph.D. candidate in Hayden&#8217;s lab.<\/p>\n<p>In the video gambling experiments, graduated colored columns illustrated the amount of water that could be won. The monkeys were more curious about the gambles when the stakes\u2014or columns\u2014were higher.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers found the monkeys not only consistently selected the gamble that informed them if they picked a winner right away, but they were also willing to select that option when the winnings were up to 25 percent less than the gamble that required them to wait for the results. \u201cOne way to think about this is that this is the amount of water the monkeys were willing to pay for the information about if they made the correct choice,\u201d explained Blanchard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat 25 percent was really surprising to us\u2014that\u2019s pretty big,\u201d Hayden said. \u201cThese monkeys really, really want that information, and they do these gambling tasks repeatedly and never get bored of them\u2014it&#8217;s intrinsically motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rewarding Curiosity<\/p>\n<p>According to the researchers, their study helps to build a broader understanding for how curiosity\u2014information seeking\u2014is processed and rewarded in the brain.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_90032\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90032\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-90032\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Hayden-OFC-fMRI.jpg\" alt=\"MRI of brain with Orbitofrontal cortex highlighted. \" width=\"1000\" height=\"834\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Hayden-OFC-fMRI.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Hayden-OFC-fMRI-630x525.jpg 630w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-90032\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MRI of brain with Orbitofrontal cortex highlighted. Image courtesy of Benjamin Hayden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Like monkeys, when curious we evaluate what we\u2019d be willing to pay\u2014or give up\u2014to satisfy our curiosity, Hayden said. And in the case of gambling, there is also the potential of a prize to factor in. So when we make a choice, it depends on the sum of those two things: the gamble (the money you might win), and the value of finding out. And those two things need to be combined in order to make decisions about that gamble.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier work suggests that these components are combined in the brain\u2019s dopamine system. This study looks at that one step earlier in the process, in a region of the brain called the Orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think of the OFC as the workshop of economic value, where, in this case, you have the value of the gamble and the value of the information\u2014the raw materials\u2014but they haven\u2019t yet been combined,\u201d said Hayden. \u201cThis study seems to have revealed that the mixing of the raw materials happens somewhere between the OFC and the dopamine system. We now have two points in the circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the reasons this research is important,\u201d Hayden said, \u201cis because this basic desire for information turns out to be something that\u2019s really corrupted in people with anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think that by understanding these basic circuits in monkeys we may gain insights that 10 to15 years down the road may lead to new treatments for these psychiatric diseases,\u201d Hayden concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin of Columbia University was co-senior author of the study.<\/p>\n<p>The National Institutes of Health supported the research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monkeys are notoriously curious, and new research has quantified just how eager they are to gain new information, even if there are not immediate benefits. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":90052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,1],"tags":[18672,18572,16072],"class_list":["post-89922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","category-uncategorized","tag-department-of-brain-and-cognitive-sciences","tag-research-finding","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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