Anyone who has ever fallen asleep reading a text book or had trouble studying for a class knows how hard it is to focus on something when you are bored. It is an inherent fact that people have an easier time studying topics that interest them, and a new study published in Neuron explains why: the power of curiosity.

Curiosity is a very powerful brain function that, according the the data, doesn’t just enhance the brain’s ability to learn, but also the ability to store and recall information as well. The study itself took place with a group of volunteers who agreed to take a survey that covered a range of topics. Each volunteer was given a question, and then was shown a neutral face for two seconds before they received the answer. Then, the group was asked to rate the questions based off if they already knew the answer or, if they didn’t, how curious they were to find out. Once this was completed, each person’s brain was then monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they were given the answer.

The data spoke for itself. According to the study, people were on average seventeen percent better at recalling the answers to questions they had been curious about. Not only that, but they also were four percent better at recalling the faces they had been briefly been shown. These results prove that curiosity helps the brain function on multiple levels; helping the volunteers remember, not just the answers to the questions that peaked their interest, but also to the unrelated faces as well.  But the real question is, why?

The answer lies within the brain’s reward circuits. When one is expecting something (such as food) the anticipation for that thing triggers a key part of the brain’s reward circuits called the nucleus accumbens. Curiosity stimulates the nucleus accumbens in the same way, except instead of an item (food) the reward is the answer to the question. As a result, when your curiosity sparks the nucleus accumbens, other parts of your brain are also triggered as well. Of those parts is the center that deals with memory, which then enables you to better recall, not just the facts you were curious about, but anything else you might of learned during that time.