MECHANISMS OF INFORMATION SEEKING IN THE PRIMATE BRAIN

项目摘要。控制我们的动机、情绪和决定的大脑系统最依赖于 预测未来的基本层面：学习什么样的奖励和惩罚，什么时候会 他们会来，他们会有多大的价值。很自然，我们有强烈的动机去寻找信息， 将减少我们对未来事件的不确定性。事实上，不仅人类和其他动物选择 观察提示，告知他们未来的动机结果，他们愿意支付的特权- 值得注意的是，即使他们不能有效地利用信息来影响结果， 把知识本身当作一种奖励。尽管它在日常决策和临床中的重要性 然而，对于这种寻求信息的行为是如何产生和控制的，人们知之甚少--大脑是如何 预期信息，赋予其价值，并将其发送到激励电路以驱动行为。 我们确定了一组解剖学上相连的皮质和皮质下脑区，包括前扣带 皮层和基底神经节（BG）的特定子区域，编码奖励的数量水平 不确定性这组大脑区域是否调节了寻求提前信息以减少不确定性的驱动力， 如果是的话，怎么做？目标1将首先测试皮质BG网络中的不确定性选择神经元是否以及如何 预测未来奖惩信息的到来。初步数据显示， 皮质BG网络预期解决奖励不确定性的信息（与简单的 预期有价值和/或不确定的奖励）。接下来，目标1将暂时破坏特定的不确定性- 皮质BG网络中的敏感子区域，以评估其对信息寻求的贡献，并 神经元活动在网络的其他子区域。初步数据表明，信息预期 BG中的信号在介导信息寻求中起着积极的作用。Aim 2将使用精心设计的 灵长类动物在不同报酬水平下为获取信息而付费的决策范式 不确定性，结合计算建模，以定量地确定信息，不确定性， 皮质-BG网络中的价值信号有助于积极的决策，包括评估 信息、风险和价值。接下来，aim 2将使用相同的范例来阐明信息和奖励 外侧缰（LHb）的价值加工，这是控制动机的关键结构。初步数据 指示BG信息信号跟踪获得信息的主观值，并且LHb是 接收这些信号并产生信息寻求行为的主要候选人。 这些目标代表了我们理解动机行为的神经生物学的关键步骤，将拓宽 我们对信息寻求和减少不确定性的机制的理解，并将阐明 已知与人类精神疾病密切相关的大脑区域， 通常在灵长类动物中研究，有助于我们的决定和行动。

Project Summary. The brain systems that control our motivation, emotions, and decisions rely at their most fundamental level on predicting the future: learning what rewards and punishments to expect, when they will arrive, and how valuable they will be. It is only natural that we are strongly motivated to seek information that will reduce our uncertainty about future events. Indeed, not only do humans and other animals choose to observe cues that inform them about future motivational outcomes, they are willing to pay for the privilege – and remarkably, they pay for information even when they cannot use it to influence the outcome, effectively treating the knowledge itself as a reward. Despite its importance in everyday decision making and clinical settings, little is known about how this information seeking behavior is generated and governed – how the brain anticipates information, endows it with value, and sends it to motivational circuits to drive behavior. We identified set of anatomically connected cortical and subcortical brain areas, including the anterior cingulate cortex and specific subregions of the basal ganglia (BG), that encode the quantitative level of reward uncertainty. Does this set of brain areas mediate the drive to seek advance information to reduce uncertainty, and if so, how? Aim 1 will first test whether and how uncertainty-selective neurons in the cortico-BG network anticipate the arrival of information about future rewards and punishments. Preliminary data suggest that the cortico-BG network anticipates information that resolves reward uncertainty (as dissociated from simple anticipation of valuable and/or uncertain rewards). Next, aim 1 will transiently disrupt specific uncertainty- sensitive subregions in the cortico-BG network to assess their contributions to information seeking, and to neuronal activity in other subregions of the network. Preliminary data suggest that the information-anticipation signals in the BG play an active role in mediating information seeking. Aim 2 will use a carefully designed decision-making paradigm in which primates pay to obtain information under different levels of reward uncertainty, combined with computational modelling, to quantitatively determine how information, uncertainty, and value signals in the cortico-BG network contribute to motivated decision making, including the evaluation of information, risk, and value. Next, aim 2 will use the same paradigm to elucidate information and reward value processing in the lateral habenula (LHb), a key structure for the control of motivation. Preliminary data indicate that BG information signals track the subjective value of obtaining information and that the LHb is a prime candidate for receiving these signals and generating information-seeking behavior. The Aims represent crucial steps for our understanding of the neurobiology of motivated behavior, will broaden our understanding of the mechanisms of information seeking and uncertainty reduction, and will shed light on how brain areas known to be crucially involved in human psychiatric disorders, but that have not been commonly studied in the primate, contribute to our decisions and actions.