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Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDNature Neuroscience

Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex

  • Jennifer J. Bussell1,2
  • Ryan P. Badman3,4
  • Christian D. Márton3
  • Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin5
  • Larry F. Abbott6,7,8
  • Kanaka Rajan3,4
  • Richard Axel9,10,11
11 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
  2. 2Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
  3. 3Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
  4. 4Kempner Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  5. 5Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
  6. 6Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  7. 7Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  8. 8Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  9. 9Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
  10. 10Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
  11. 11Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
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Abstract

Animals are motivated to seek information that does not influence reward outcomes, suggesting that information has intrinsic value. We have developed an odor-based information seeking task that reveals that mice choose to receive information even though it does not alter the reward outcome. Moreover, mice are willing to pay for information by sacrificing water reward, suggesting that information is of intrinsic value to a mouse. We used a microendoscope to reveal neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) while mice learned the information seeking task. We observed the emergence of distinct populations of neurons responsive to odors predictive of information and odors predictive of water reward. A latent variable model recapitulated these different representations in the low-dimensional dynamics of OFC neuronal population activity. These data suggest that mice have evolved separate pathways to represent the intrinsic value of information and the extrinsic value of water reward. Thus, the desire to acquire knowledge is observed in mice, and the value of this information is represented in the OFC. The mouse now provides a facile experimental system to study the representation of the value of information, a higher cognitive variable.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{bussell2026representations,
  title = {{Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex}},
  author = {Jennifer J. Bussell and Ryan P. Badman and Christian D. Márton and Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin and Larry F. Abbott and Kanaka Rajan and Richard Axel},
  journal = {Nature Neuroscience},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1038/s41593-026-02377-y},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02377-y},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex
AU  - Jennifer J. Bussell
AU  - Ryan P. Badman
AU  - Christian D. Márton
AU  - Ethan S. Bromberg-Martin
AU  - Larry F. Abbott
AU  - Kanaka Rajan
AU  - Richard Axel
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/30
JO  - Nature Neuroscience
DO  - 10.1038/s41593-026-02377-y
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02377-y
AB  - Animals are motivated to seek information that does not influence reward outcomes, suggesting that information has intrinsic value. We have developed an odor-based information seeking task that reveals that mice choose to receive information even though it does not alter the reward outcome. Moreover, mice are willing to pay for information by sacrificing water reward, suggesting that information is of intrinsic value to a mouse. We used a microendoscope to reveal neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) while mice learned the information seeking task. We observed the emergence of distinct populations of neurons responsive to odors predictive of information and odors predictive of water reward. A latent variable model recapitulated these different representations in the low-dimensional dynamics of OFC neuronal population activity. These data suggest that mice have evolved separate pathways to represent the intrinsic value of information and the extrinsic value of water reward. Thus, the desire to acquire knowledge is observed in mice, and the value of this information is represented in the OFC. The mouse now provides a facile experimental system to study the representation of the value of information, a higher cognitive variable.
SN  - 1097-6256
SN  - 1546-1726
ER  -