Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: Animals are motivated to seek information that does not influence reward outcomes, suggesting that information has intrinsic value. We have developed an odor-based information seeking task that reveals that mice choose to receive information even though it does not alter the reward outcome. Moreover, mice are willing to pay for information by sacrificing water reward, suggesting that information is of intrinsic value to a mouse. We used a microendoscope to reveal neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) while mice learned the information seeking task. We observed the emergence of distinct populations of neurons responsive to odors predictive of information and odors predictive of water reward. A latent variable model recapitulated these different representations in the low-dimensional

SUBMITTER: Bussell JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11482914 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature