How does our brain react when we explore something new?

Which restaurant to choose? What book to buy? What to do this weekend ? Answering these questions requires exploring one's environment in search of relevant information. Pixabay In a constantly changing world, making good decisions requires the ability to explore different strategies and to identify the one that will be the most appropriate. Research conducted by a team of neuroscientists from Inserm and CNRS at the École Normale Supérieure - PSL, in collaboration with Harvard University (USA), has made it possible to characterize this cognitive process by recording the tiny changes in the magnetic field emitted by the activity of the human brain. According to the results of this study, exploring ourenvironment, or trying a new strategy, is accompanied by a sustained increase in attention that is manifested in the peripheral nervous system. This work is published in the journal eLife . Which restaurant to go to tonight - Which book to buy - What to do this weekend - Answering these questions, as well as thousands of others, requires exploring one's environment in search of relevant information - whether it be restaurant reviews, literary opinions or weather reports. In research laboratories, the study of behavioral and brain markers of this type of exploration is not new.