What are you curious about?

More than a dozen years since I committed to doing a weekly science column, I still don’t see it as a job.  If any, I see it as a fresh chance to understand, even if only a little bit more than I did before, something – something that hangs like a taunting bug with a shiny, twirling core – waiting to be chased. That “something” may be about particles, plants, planets, or people. Whatever they are, they present themselves in infinite layers that when I am able to grasp even a sliver, it reveals another one for me to catch at a later time, when my mind is ready.

Everyone is born with a seemingly indefatigable sense of curiosity. As infants, before we even start talking, we explore the world with our senses, driven by our inherent curiosity as to why things are the way they are – even if to a child – it could just mean “how will this coin taste if I put it in my mouth?”

I for one, drove my parents, my aunts and uncles, my older cousins mad with my requests for even a glimmer of an answer to the “why” that stalks an endless string of things. In fact, in the morning, when I would ask my Dad a question and he would gently say “later” because he was rushing to work, I would follow him to the garage and ask him “what time?” That is how serious I was about getting an answer, or even just a clue. They sent me to start school at an unusually early age and in all probability, it was my tireless questioning that must have greatly influenced that decision to get me out of their hair, for most of the day anyway.

My case is not a special one. We all had the privilege to send our parents and other elders to the end of their wits with our incessant curiosity as kids. But adulthood is another matter.

While curiosity is never completely siphoned out of our minds as adults, the supply is generally no longer as energetic as the Niagara Falls of our childhood’s curiosity. Perhaps it is because we form beliefs that make us feel secure and comfortable but also stop us from further asking; or we are beset by routines which do not summon our curiosity; or we just, for whatever reason, do not find the need or desire to ask as much.

But we all know that curiosity is what fuels the enterprise of the mind to create.  Without curiosity, there would be no science, no art, no entrepreneurship – among the many other adventures of the creative mind. Curiosity never dots a pursuit; it is the semi-colon that signals the next revelation.

Recently, scientists observed what happens to our brains when we are curious and they found that when we are, our brains are charged with dopamine – that neurotransmitter that makes us feel pleasure and reward. They also found that we learn something better and longer when we are curious about it, including the other things associated with what we were curious about.

The study in the journal Neuron had student participants looking over a hundred questions, which they marked as either one they were curious about or not. Then they were shown the questions again but this time, hooked on to a fMRI machine, which tracked blood flow to their brains.

The scientists saw that during the anticipation between question and answer, there was increased activity in the brain parts (nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area) known to produce dopamine. Then, the subjects were tested for recall of the answers. And indeed, the subjects remembered more of the answers to the questions they said they were curious about than to those they were not curious about.

The study tested them again after a day, and still the participants retained more about the things they were curious about. They even remembered the faces that were shown with the answers to the questions they were curious about but were irrelevant to the question. For this, the scientists noted how the brain parts noted for dopamine transmittal connected to the hippocampus  – the brain part associated with long-term learning.

So what if the study revealed that being curious enables you to remember better and longer? To you, this may have already been an intuition that science just confirmed. But I think it revealed something fundamental about curiosity. It means that curiosity occupies the same neural echelons as “hunger” and “thirst”, just like love does too, when it comes to our most basic wiring.

But now, I am even more curious about curiosity. How much pleasure do older people feel, compared to the young, when they are curious? Is exuberant curiosity only the privileged wiring of youth? How old are you and what are you curious about? – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, Science Solitaire and Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire. Her column appears every Friday and you can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.