How curiosity enhances hippocampus-dependent memory

Curiosity plays a fundamental role for learning and memory in everyday life. However, the neural mechanisms of curiosity-mediated memory are poorly understood. Here, we review the evidence of an emerging field of curiosity research. The findings suggest that curiosity states elicit activity in the dopaminergic circuit and thereby enhance hippocampus-dependent memory for curiosity target information and incidental information encountered during curiosity states. We elaborate how these recent findings on curiosity-mediated memory parallel with findings on reward, novelty, prediction errors, and exploration. Drawing from this converging evidence, we propose the Prediction, Appraisal, Curiosity, and Exploration (PACE) framework that integrates theories about curiosity with existing models within these domains. The PACE framework stimulates future investigation of the mechanisms underlying curiosity-related memory enhancements