Neuronal detection of social actions directs collective escape behaviour
- 1Department of Neurobiology, School of Biological Sciences. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- 2Department of Neurobiology, School of Biological Sciences. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA. [email protected]
Abstract
Animals in groups obtain information from social partners to engage in adaptive behaviour 1–3 . Social information transmission is observed in fish schools 4–6 , bird flocks 7,8 and human groups 9,10 , but the neural representation of such socially acquired information is poorly understood 3,11,12 . Here we show that, in the schooling glassfish Danionella cerebrum 13–15 , collective escape from danger can be mediated by an individual’s visual perception of other escaping animals. To understand the neural basis of socially transmitted escape behaviour, we imaged neural activity from adult glassfish viewing the actions of virtual conspecifics. Visual neurons in the midbrain optic tectum 16,17 and thalamus 18 increased their activity when virtual conspecifics escaped. Escape-responsive neurons also responded to the sudden disappearance of virtual fish, yet were unaffected by the disappearance of stimuli moving with non-biological linear motion. Behaviourally, fish retreated from virtual schools that escaped or disappeared, but only those swimming with biological burst-and-glide motion. Neural encoding of this rapid social offset allows fish to infer danger from social information alone, a potentially effective strategy for animals that are capable of rapid movement but have a limited visual range 14,19 . These results show how the neural computations of individuals enable rapid information sharing in collectives.
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BibTeX
@article{yu2026neuronal,
title = {{Neuronal detection of social actions directs collective escape behaviour}},
author = {Jo‐Hsien Yu and Geoffrey T. Meyerhof and Jimjohn Milan and Julia L. Napoli and Matthew Lovett-Barron},
journal = {Nature},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41586-026-11041-1},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11041-1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Neuronal detection of social actions directs collective escape behaviour
AU - Jo‐Hsien Yu
AU - Geoffrey T. Meyerhof
AU - Jimjohn Milan
AU - Julia L. Napoli
AU - Matthew Lovett-Barron
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
JO - Nature
DO - 10.1038/s41586-026-11041-1
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11041-1
AB - Animals in groups obtain information from social partners to engage in adaptive behaviour 1–3 . Social information transmission is observed in fish schools 4–6 , bird flocks 7,8 and human groups 9,10 , but the neural representation of such socially acquired information is poorly understood 3,11,12 . Here we show that, in the schooling glassfish Danionella cerebrum 13–15 , collective escape from danger can be mediated by an individual’s visual perception of other escaping animals. To understand the neural basis of socially transmitted escape behaviour, we imaged neural activity from adult glassfish viewing the actions of virtual conspecifics. Visual neurons in the midbrain optic tectum 16,17 and thalamus 18 increased their activity when virtual conspecifics escaped. Escape-responsive neurons also responded to the sudden disappearance of virtual fish, yet were unaffected by the disappearance of stimuli moving with non-biological linear motion. Behaviourally, fish retreated from virtual schools that escaped or disappeared, but only those swimming with biological burst-and-glide motion. Neural encoding of this rapid social offset allows fish to infer danger from social information alone, a potentially effective strategy for animals that are capable of rapid movement but have a limited visual range 14,19 . These results show how the neural computations of individuals enable rapid information sharing in collectives.
SN - 0028-0836
SN - 1476-4687
ER -