Neugierige Gehirnwellen: Die funktionelle Rolle von Oszillationen im Neugier-basierten Gedächtnis
Kognitive und systemische Humanneurowissenschaften
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Curiosity – an individual’s desire to seek information – enhances learning and memory. In everyday life, it is curiosity that drives knowledge acquisition by triggering exploration of unknown information. However, the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of curiosity-driven memory enhancements remain to be explored. Research suggests that brain areas important for memory and reward processing are involved, but individual differences in the associated cognitive and neural processes exist. The present project aimed at determining the individual differences and neurophysiological underpinnings of curiosity-driven memory enhancements. Therefore, a combination of questionnaires, cognitive tasks, and different brain imaging techniques, such as magnetoencephalography (MEG) for the measurement of brain oscillations as well as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the measurement of functional and structural brain connectivity was used. The novelty of the global COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching consequences, offered the unique opportunity to explore the drivers of curiosity-related information seeking in real life. By inviting participants of a previous resting-state fMRI study to take part in an online survey, my colleagues and I were able to show that individual differences in both curiosity and mesolimbic functional connectivity between two key regions of the reward circuit, namely, the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc), determined how often participants informed themselves about COVID-19-related news. This novel finding lays the foundation for a better understanding of the cognitive and neural drivers of real-life information seeking, potentially helping individuals with detrimental information-seeking behaviour negatively affecting their mental wellbeing. Furthermore, this study led to a research collaboration with the BBC News Lab, in which we systematically identified three motivational factors of general news consumption besides curiosity (i.e., informational updating, understanding & sense-making, and affect regulation) and revealed that only understanding & sensemaking predicted information seeking about another specific news event – the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Together, these findings not only promote future collaborative research, but offer the opportunity for news providers to optimally tailor news content to support regular and healthy news engagement. To further explore the cognitive and neural processes that determine curiosity-driven memory enhancements, I conducted a series of neuroimaging studies in the laboratory. Firstly, I investigated whether neural fingerprints, that is, intrinsic functional brain connectivity measured using resting-state fMRI scans, can predict individual differences in memory enhancements based on curiosity and predictions errors (i.e., when information is more interesting than previously expected). My colleagues and I were able to show that distinct mesolimbic and cortico-hippocampal functional networks determine how much individuals benefit from curiosity and prediction errors in a memory task, respectively. Secondly, I also collected participants’ MEG activity during the execution of the memory task. Analysis of oscillatory brain activity as a marker of communication between brain regions revealed that theta oscillations (4-8 Hz), which are known to be import for memory and reward processing, measured during the satisfaction but not the elicitation of curiosity were associated with curiosity-driven memory enhancements, suggesting a functional role of theta oscillations in curiosity-driven memory. Thirdly, by analysing event-related potentials of the electroencephalogram (EEG) collected during the same kind of memory task, my colleagues and I revealed that curiosity can act as an amplifier of reward-related processing, thereby promoting learning and memory. Together, these results shed light on the neural mechanisms of curiosity-driven memory, offering an opportunity to harness the memory-enhancing effects of curiosity in everyday life.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Curiosity and mesolimbic functional connectivity drive information seeking in real life. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 18(1).
Eschmann, Kathrin C. J.; Pereira, Duarte F. M. M.; Valji, Ashvanti; Dehmelt, Vera & Gruber, Matthias J.
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Intrinsic functional connections determine how curiosity and prediction errors enhance memory.
Eschmann, Kathrin C. J.; Valji, Ashvanti; Graham, Kim S.; Lawrence, Andrew D. & Gruber, Matthias J.
