Parietal neurons encode expected gains in instrumental information

Significance We examine how the brain guides active sensing in awake, behaving primates using a paradigm in which information sampling is dissociated from reinforcement variables, such as cumulative future reward or reward prediction errors. We show that target selective cells in lateral intraparietal cortex encode decision variables based on expected gains in instrumental information—the extent to which a visual cue, when discriminated, is expected to reduce the uncertainty of a subsequent action.