# MECHANISMS OF INFORMATION SEEKING IN THE PRIMATE BRAIN

> **NIH NIH R01** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $393,750

## Abstract

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 reduc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10358487
- **Project number:** 5R01MH116937-04
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ilya E. Monosov
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $393,750
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-04-10 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10358487

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10358487, MECHANISMS OF INFORMATION SEEKING IN THE PRIMATE BRAIN (5R01MH116937-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10358487. Licensed CC0.

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