The zona incerta in control of novelty seeking and investigation across species

Many organisms rely on a capacity to rapidly replicate, disperse, and evolve when faced with uncertainty and novelty. But mammals do not evolve and replicate quickly. They rely on a sophisticated nervous system to generate predictions and select responses when confronted with these challenges. An important component of their behavioral repertoire is the adaptive context-dependent seeking or avoiding of percep-tually novel objects, even when their values have not yet been learned. Here, we outline recent cross-species breakthroughs that shed light on how the zona incerta (ZI), a relatively evolutionarily conserved brain area, supports novelty-seeking and novelty-related investigations. We then conjecture how the architecture of the ZI's anatomical connectivity - the wide-ranging top-down cortical inputs to the ZI, and its specifically strong outputs to both the brainstem action con-trollers and to brain areas involved in action value learning - place the ZI in a unique role at the intersection of cognitive control and learning.

Automated summary

Mammals rely on a sophisticated nervous system for generating predictions and selecting responses. Perceptually novel objects play an important role in their behavior. The zona incerta (ZI) is positioned at the intersection of cognitive control and learning, supported by its anatomical connectivity.