Curiosity and Mesolimbic Functional Connectivity Drive Information Seeking in Real Life.

ABSTRACT: Curiosity reflects an individual's intrinsic motivation to seek information in order to close information gaps. In laboratory-based experiments, both curiosity and information seeking have been associated with enhanced neural dynamics in the mesolimbic dopaminergic circuit. However, it is unclear whether curiosity and dopaminergic dynamics drive information seeking in real life. We investigated (i) whether curiosity predicts different characteristics of real-life information seeking and (ii) whether functional connectivity within the mesolimbic dopaminergic circuit is associated with information seeking outside the laboratory. Up to 15 months before the COVID-19 pandemic, curiosity and anxiety questionnaires, and a 10-minute resting-state fMRI session were conducted. In a follow-up survey

SUBMITTER: Eschmann KCJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9452113 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature