The study investigates the neural substrates of exploratory decisions in humans, focusing on the conflict between gathering and exploiting information in uncertain environments. Using a gambling task, the researchers characterized human choices as either exploratory or exploitative and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions associated with each type of decision. They found that the frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus were preferentially active during exploratory decisions, while regions of the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed activity characteristic of value-based exploitative decision-making. The results suggest a model of action selection under uncertainty that involves switching between exploratory and exploitative modes, with the frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus playing key roles in exploration. This finding has implications for both computational and neural accounts of action selection, highlighting the importance of exploration in adaptive behavior and its potential links to frontal pathology and subcortical systems.The study investigates the neural substrates of exploratory decisions in humans, focusing on the conflict between gathering and exploiting information in uncertain environments. Using a gambling task, the researchers characterized human choices as either exploratory or exploitative and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions associated with each type of decision. They found that the frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus were preferentially active during exploratory decisions, while regions of the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed activity characteristic of value-based exploitative decision-making. The results suggest a model of action selection under uncertainty that involves switching between exploratory and exploitative modes, with the frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus playing key roles in exploration. This finding has implications for both computational and neural accounts of action selection, highlighting the importance of exploration in adaptive behavior and its potential links to frontal pathology and subcortical systems.