LAUSR

Neurons in the subthalamic “zone of uncertainty” assign intrinsic value to novel experiences The human brain adapts with experience to learn and motivate future behaviors. But what drives motivation before learning? Attraction to the unknown, or curiosity, is a prerequisite for higher-order knowledge. Innate attraction to novelty is thought to be an evolutionary prerequisite for complex learning and guides organisms toward acquisition of adaptive behavioral repertoires (1). Indeed, heightened novelty exploration has been linked with augmented learning rates in mice and humans. Additionally, novel stimuli without any clear rewarding or biologically beneficial attributes can function as positive reinforcers, highlighting their powerful motivational properties (2). Heightened novelty-seeking phenotypes are premorbid risk factors for several neuropsychiatric disorders, such as addiction and bipolar disorder (3), relationships that are recapitulated in rodent models (4). On page 704 of this issue, Ahmadlou et al. (5) identify a population of neurons in the medial zona incerta (ZIm) that integrates arousal state and familiarity of stimuli in the environment to drive investigation of novelty in mice.