Curiosity And Hunger Share Brain Regions

Curiosity and hunger share brain regions. A fascinating fact because they define two basic needs in the human being and because both guarantee survival. One prompts us to seek food and the other knowledge to better adapt to difficulties and progress.

Albert Einstein said that curiosity has its own reason for existing. Few things are more important than questioning everything we see. Going beyond the apparent, asking ourselves questions, exploring and looking at the world with the passion, interest and mischievous innocence of a child is something extraordinary.

It is no coincidence that both humans and animals have this inquisitive disposition. The urge to discover is as decisive as the need to feel hungry. In fact, both dimensions act as impulses that guide behavior, guarantee existence and also favor us to continue living in increasingly complex environments.

What would become of us without that physiological need that makes the stomach growl and leads us to look for something to eat? Obviously, we would die. As we also died without that impulse that makes us look into the keyhole, that wonders how to cure certain diseases and what research we should start to put into practice …

Why do curiosity and hunger share brain regions?

The find is recent. It was this same year when a team of neuroscientists from the University of Reading (United Kingdom) has shown through a study that, indeed, curiosity and hunger share brain regions.

Despite this, there were already certain suspicions. Both dimensions are two great drivers of motivation. Thus, something that is often said is that hunger, for example, is capable of taking us to extreme situations to get food. Curiosity, although it may surprise us, has also led human beings to cross unimaginable borders to accumulate knowledge, discover other scenarios and position themselves as the most advanced being on this planet.

Chance? Maybe not. It is very possible that in the depths of that brain engineering, hunger and curiosity start from common mechanisms to obtain the same end: subsistence. Curiosity, after all, drives movement, action and, above all, to go beyond the comfort zone to find out what is on the other side.

Something like this has helped us in the past to become explorers, beings capable of crossing new territories to discover better resources to survive and prosper. Consider, for example, prehistoric human migrations and what they did to humanity.

This discovery by cognitive neuroscientist Johnny King Lau and his team has only confirmed something that was already sensed …

The nucleus accumbens, center of hunger and curiosity

We know that although curiosity and hunger share brain regions, the second dimension is a bit more complex. The feeling of hunger is a very powerful instinct that is activated when the brain detects a series of changes in the levels of hormones and nutrients in the blood.

Now, the team of scientists from the University of Reading, responsible for this study, detected an interesting phenomenon from the use of magnetic resonances. When curiosity is “turned on” and when that empty stomach that alerts us that we are hungry does, the same brain region is activated: the nucleus accumbens. Likewise, other areas such as the bilateral caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area also increase their activity.

And what specifically do these areas of the brain do? In reality, these zones orchestrate behaviors geared toward reward processing. That is, they encourage us to implement actions that allow us to receive something rewarding.

In the case of hunger, what we get in return when we act is food (nutrients), the pleasure of enjoying a good meal and continuing to survive. Thus, when it comes to curiosity, we gain knowledge, discoveries and new means to satisfy our well-being in infinite ways.

Curiosity and hunger share brain regions to keep you motivated

Curiosity and the desire for information is a psychological phenomenon that has attracted the interest of some of the greatest names in the history of psychology, such as William James, Ivan Pavlov, Frederic Skinner …

Thus, if curiosity and hunger share regions, it is because they have a lot to do with motivation. While one seems to us a sign of intelligence and rationality (curiosity), the second seems to us little more than a primary instinct (hunger), but even so, both are essential and decisive.

In fact, loss of curiosity is associated with depression, while lack of hunger is associated with illness. Without them we are nothing and as William James said, ” the desire to understand what we do not know keeps us alive, because curiosity is also another indispensable form of food.”

Let us fan this impulse, let us nurture it every day to keep ourselves alive in body and intelligence, in health and hope to progress, to advance beyond any limit and challenge. Curiosity, like hunger, are two indispensable instincts in a large part of living beings.