The Brain Circuits and Dynamics of Curiosity-Driven Behavior in Naturally Curious Marmosets

Curiosity is a fundamental nature of animals for adapting to changing environments, but its underlying brain circuits and mechanisms remain poorly understood. One main barrier is that existing studies use rewards to train animals and motivate their engagement in behavioral tasks. As such, the rewards become significant confounders in interpreting curiosity. Here, we overcame this problem by studying research-naïve and naturally curious marmosets that can proactively and persistently participate in a visual choice task without external rewards. When performing the task, the marmosets manifested a strong innate preference towards acquiring new information, associated with faster behavioral responses. Longitudinally functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed behavior-relevant brain states that reflected choice preferences and engaged several brain regions, including the cerebellum, the hippocampus, and cortical areas 19DI, 25, and 46D, with the cerebellum being the most prominent. These results unveil the essential brain circuits and dynamics underlying curiosity-driven activity.