Boredom and the representation of information content in the neocortex
Boredom – a pervasive mental state – promotes the pursuit of novel information by assigning negative value to monotonous conditions. Yet, how the brain extracts and represents the information content of ongoing sensory experience remains poorly understood. Here, we combine behavioral assays, neurophysiological recordings and computational modeling across humans and mice to investigate how sensory information shapes boredom-related behavior. In a cross-species choice task, both humans and mice robustly avoid monotonous sources of sensory stimulation. We formalize perceived monotony using empirical entropy as a measure of information content and show that monotony avoidance scales directly with low entropy and in humans correlates with boredom experience. Human electroencephalography and mesoscopic calcium imaging in mice reveal that the recruitment of neocortical activity tracks stimulus entropy. Two-photon calcium imaging in the auditory cortex of mice further uncovers a stimulus-invariant population code for entropy, supported by neurons tuned to information content. A recurrent network model reproduced this code through an interplay of afferent depression and recurrent facilitation. Together, we demonstrate how the information content of sensory experience is represented in cortical population activity, providing a basis for boredom-related avoidance behavior. Thus, our findings link synaptic and neuronal dynamics to boredom, acting as a safeguard mechanism to ensure high information input to the brain. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. This work was supported by research grant Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft CRC1080-C05 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft SPP 2041 Project #347573108 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/Agence nationale de la recherche Project #431393205 (S.R.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DIP M-BM-^SNeurobiology of ForgettingM-BM-^T (S.R.), Rhine-Main University Alliance RMU (S.R.), JST Moonshot R & D #JPMJMS2292-A1-02 (O.T.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft #512007073 SFB/TRR379 TP B02 (O.T.), BMFTR German Center for Mental Health (DZPG, grant 01EE2505C & VISIONS TRESPE 01EE2507Q) (O.T), and a fellowship of the Focus Translational Neuroscience Mainz (J.S., L.W.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
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