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2. can curiosity Be localiZed to one Brain region?
no, it cannot. Here's how I know: I've personally worked with
people who have a severely damaged striatum. Know what?
They still have curiostiy. If the striatum is where curiosity is
in the brain, how can someone whose striata are gone still
have curiosty? They cannot. Yet they do. Poof. Hypothesis disproved.
Imagine asking, "Where is video located in my computer?"
That doesn't make any sense. Your monitor is required to see
the video. Your graphics card is required to render the video.
The software is required to generate the code for the video.
But the "video" isn't located anywhere in the computer.
now there's a subtlety here. It may be that people with
damaged striata have curiosity impairments (whatever that
means), which would agree with the fMRI study discussed in
that link above, but it proves that the striatum is not where
curiosity is in the brain. More technically: the striatum may
be a critical part of a network of brain regions that support
curiosity behaviors, but that is different from saying that the
striatum is where curiosity is.
or, as I say in my chapter:
The cognitive subtraction method . . . provide[s] details of
functional localization that can then be tested and corroborated
using other methodologies, including lesion studies. The interpretation
of these localization results is confounded, however, by
a lack of clarity in what is meant for a "function" to be localized.
For example, Young and colleagues (2000) noted that for a
given function to be localizable, that function "must be capable
of being considered both structurally and functionally discrete;"
a property that the brain is incapable of assuming due to the
intricate, large-scale neuronal interconnectivity.
Thus, discussing behavioral functions outside of the context of
the larger cortical and subcortical networks involved with that
function is a poorly posed problem. Therefore, the scientific
study of cognition requires detailed neuroanatomical and connectivity
information to compliment functional activity findings.
Anyway, this prompted me to write a whole blog post with
link to papers, etc. about this topic: http://blog.ketyov.
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