Curious Brain Waves: The Functional Role of Oscillations in Curiosity-driven Memory

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Curiosity enhances memory formation. If someone is particularly curious about a certain fact, memory for this information will be enhanced. In every-day life, it is curiosity that drives knowledge acquisition by triggering exploration of unknown information. However, the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of curiosity-driven memory enhancement remain to be explored. Research suggests that brain areas important for memory and reward processing are involved, but individual differences in the strength of connections between brain areas predict the level of curiosity-based memory enhancement.This project will be the first to investigate brain oscillations – as an indicator of the communication between brain areas – and the neurophysiological nature of individual differences in curiosity-driven memory. Therefore, a combination of functional and structural brain imaging techniques, namely magnetoencephalography (MEG), an imaging technique that stands out due to its high temporal and spatial resolution, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which allows the tracking brain fibres, will be used. It will be tested whether curiosity is accompanied by certain brain oscillations originating from curiosity-related brain areas, leading to enhanced memory performance. Furthermore, it will be explored whether individual differences of key anatomical structures mediate individual differences in curiosity-driven memory and the underlying oscillatory brain activity. These findings will give novel insight into the neural basis of curiosity-driven memory. Understanding the neurophysiological basis of curiosity – as a critical driver of learning in real-life – will provide the opportunity for translating these findings to real-world applications, such as optimally harnessing curiosity in educational settings.