We've long known that humans are attracted to novelty, but is it really the newness of something that attracts us or its unexpectedness, or the emotions it arouses in us? A new study exploring the 'novelty center' of the brain -- an area linked both to the hippocampus (crucial for learning and memory) and the amygdala (critical for emotion) -- has revealed that, yes, novelty is in itself stimulating, and the greater the degree of novelty, the more driven we are to explore it.