Asymmetric prefrontal representations for leader–follower dynamics
8 affiliations
- 1Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
- 2Computational Neuroscience Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
- 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- 4Quantitative Sciences Unit, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- 5Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA
- 6Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- 7Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Alper Center for Neural Development and Regeneration, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
- 8Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA. [email protected]
Abstract
Across species, cooperative behaviour is often organized by distinct social roles such as leaders and followers1, yet the neural mechanisms that support these emergent role dynamics remain unclear. Here we introduce a mouse paradigm that captures leader–follower dynamics during cooperation. In this paradigm, stable social roles emerge through reciprocal interaction and predict learning speed. Disrupting the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), particularly in followers, impairs cooperation and induces complementary shifts in how animals weigh self- and partner-related cues during decision-making. Calcium imaging reveals that the mPFC represents leader–follower dynamics and computes an egocentric social value map of the partner’s position in a role-dependent manner. By integrating these empirical findings with a multi-agent inverse reinforcement learning framework, we identify latent value functions that guide cooperative decisions and are decodable from mPFC activity. These findings identify prefrontal representations of leader–follower dynamics and partner information, revealing how social roles structure asymmetric yet reciprocal influence over joint decisions. Mice spontaneously form leader and follower roles during cooperation, and the medial prefrontal cortex encodes these role dynamics and an egocentric social value map of the partner’s position.
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BibTeX
@article{cheng2026asymmetric,
title = {{Asymmetric prefrontal representations for leader–follower dynamics}},
author = {Yuan Cheng and Yusi Chen and Myungji Kwak and Ross P. Kempner and Rudramani Gyawali Singha and Jared Winslow and Runqi Liu and Umais Khan and Tessa Spangler and Alvi Khan and Talmo Pereira and Matthew R Whiteway and Evan Schaffer and Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana and Nan Yang and Zheng Wu},
journal = {Nature},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1038/s41586-026-10900-1},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10900-1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Asymmetric prefrontal representations for leader–follower dynamics
AU - Yuan Cheng
AU - Yusi Chen
AU - Myungji Kwak
AU - Ross P. Kempner
AU - Rudramani Gyawali Singha
AU - Jared Winslow
AU - Runqi Liu
AU - Umais Khan
AU - Tessa Spangler
AU - Alvi Khan
AU - Talmo Pereira
AU - Matthew R Whiteway
AU - Evan Schaffer
AU - Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana
AU - Nan Yang
AU - Zheng Wu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/19
JO - Nature
DO - 10.1038/s41586-026-10900-1
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10900-1
AB - Across species, cooperative behaviour is often organized by distinct social roles such as leaders and followers1, yet the neural mechanisms that support these emergent role dynamics remain unclear. Here we introduce a mouse paradigm that captures leader–follower dynamics during cooperation. In this paradigm, stable social roles emerge through reciprocal interaction and predict learning speed. Disrupting the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), particularly in followers, impairs cooperation and induces complementary shifts in how animals weigh self- and partner-related cues during decision-making. Calcium imaging reveals that the mPFC represents leader–follower dynamics and computes an egocentric social value map of the partner’s position in a role-dependent manner. By integrating these empirical findings with a multi-agent inverse reinforcement learning framework, we identify latent value functions that guide cooperative decisions and are decodable from mPFC activity. These findings identify prefrontal representations of leader–follower dynamics and partner information, revealing how social roles structure asymmetric yet reciprocal influence over joint decisions. Mice spontaneously form leader and follower roles during cooperation, and the medial prefrontal cortex encodes these role dynamics and an egocentric social value map of the partner’s position.
SN - 0028-0836
SN - 1476-4687
ER -