Valuation of knowledge and ignorance in mesolimbic reward circuitry
Abstract
The pursuit of knowledge is a basic feature of human nature. However, in domains ranging from health to finance people sometimes choose to remain ignorant. Here, we show that valence is central to the process by which the human brain evaluates the opportunity to gain information, explaining why knowledge may not always be preferred. We reveal that the mesolimbic reward circuitry selectively treats the opportunity to gain knowledge about future favorable outcomes, but not unfavorable outcomes, as if it has positive utility. This neural coding predicts participants' tendency to choose knowledge about future desirable outcomes more often than undesirable ones, and to choose ignorance about future undesirable outcomes more often than desirable ones. Strikingly, participants are willing to pay both for knowledge and ignorance as a function of the expected valence of knowledge. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), however, responds to the opportunity to receive knowledge over ignorance regardless of the valence of the information. Connectivity between the OFC and mesolimbic circuitry could contribute to a general preference for knowledge that is also modulated by valence. Our findings characterize the importance of valence in information seeking and its underlying neural computation. This mechanism could lead to suboptimal behavior, such as when people reject medical screenings or monitor investments more during bull than bear markets.
Additional Information
© 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). Edited by Valerie F. Reyna, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Michael S. Gazzaniga May 30, 2018 (received for review January 10, 2018) We thank Tara Srirangarajan, Lucy Li, Steven Shannon, and Atsushi Takahashi for assistance with data collection and scanning. This work was funded by a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship (to T.S.). E.S.B.-M. was supported by the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University and National Institute of Mental Health Award R01MH110594 to the Monosov Lab. Author contributions: C.J.C., E.S.B.-M., and T.S. designed research; C.J.C. performed research; C.J.C. and T.S. analyzed data; and C.J.C., E.S.B.-M., and T.S. wrote the paper. The authors declare no conflict of interest. This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. V.F.R. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board. Data deposition: Data and code related to this paper are available on GitHub (https://github.com/ccharpen/Info_seeking_PNAS). This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1800547115/-/DCSupplemental.Attached Files
Published - E7255.full.pdf
Supplemental Material - pnas.1800547115.sapp.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC6077743
- Eprint ID
- 87475
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180629-131806443
- Wellcome Trust
- Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute
- R01MH110594
- NIH
- Created
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2018-06-29Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-03-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field