Arousal, exploration and the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system

Abstract

The studies described in this thesis address a range of topics related to arousal, exploration, temporal attention, and the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system. Chapters 2 and 3 report two studies that investigated a recent theory about the role of the LC-NE system in the regulation of the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Chapter 4 reports a study on neurocognitive function in patients with dopamine-β-hydroxylase (DβH) deficiency. Chapter 5 reports an fMRI study on the neural correlates of perceptual curiosity. Chapter 6 and 7 reported several experiments investigating the effects of ‘accessory stimuli’ and temporal certainty on information processing, using scalp electrophysiology and sequential-sampling models of decision making. Taken together, the studies reported in this thesis suggest that arousal, exploration and temporal attention are closely related, which is likely due to a shared neural basis.