Mice Seek Knowledge: Orbitofrontal Cortex Encodes Intrinsic Information Value

In a mouse information-seeking task, researchers show mice value information for its own sake, even sacrificing water reward to learn outcomes. Calcium imaging of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reveals distinct neural representations for odors predicting information versus odors predicting reward, and a nonlinear latent-variable model (CEBRA) shows these representations occupy separate neural subspaces that emerge with learning, implying distinct circuits for intrinsic information value and extrinsic reward value in OFC.