The Part of Our Brain Related to Curiosity Has Been Detected

Curious Although it is a concept generally associated with cats, it also has an important place in human nature. One of the issues that scientists wondered about was exactly which part of our brain was responsible for this sense of curiosity. An answer to this question has been found.

in the USA from Columbia University Using fMRI scans, the researchers monitored the amount of oxygen in different parts of the brain to track which areas were currently active. Thus, it was revealed which regions in our brain are responsible for the feeling of curiosity. This may provide an important advantage in the future for treating disorders such as depression, which is characterized by a lack of curiosity.

It was a first in history

neuroscientist Jacqueline Gottlieb““This is the first time we’ve actually been able to connect the information we’re curious about to how our brain represents that information.” he said. During the experiment, researchers to 32 participants It showed special images called texform. In these images, ordinary images were distorted to various degrees. Volunteers were asked to rate their confidence and curiosity in identifying the topic of each texform.

With these evaluations fMRI scans were compared and remarkable activity was observed in three regions. These regions were the occipitotemporal cortex, which is linked to vision and object recognition, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which manages perceptions of value and trust, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is used for information gathering.

VmPFC, occipitotemporal cortex It seems to act as a kind of neurological bridge between the levels of certainty and feelings of curiosity recorded by . The less certain the volunteers were about the subject of the images, the more curious they were.

Research Journal of NeuroscienceHe published it in.