Single neurons in the human substantia nigra encode social learning signals
- 1Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Abstract
Humans are remarkable at adapting to changing norms, yet we know little about how the human brain encodes these social signals at the single neuron level. Here, we recorded the activity of single neurons in the substantia nigra and globus pallidus in neurosurgical participants as they played an iterative ultimatum game versus human and computer avatars. Using computational modeling of behavior, we found that putative dopaminergic units in the substantia nigra tracked the valence of norm prediction errors, with greater encoding during gameplay with human versus computer avatars. Analogous analyses in the globus pallidus, a nucleus adjacent to the substantia nigra, found no significant effect. Our results identify a novel role for the substantia nigra in encoding social learning signals.
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BibTeX
@misc{davis2026single,
title = {{Single neurons in the human substantia nigra encode social learning signals}},
author = {A. N. Davis and O. Perl and B. H. Kopell and M. Heflin and Q. X. Fu and S. E. Qasim and Z. Imtiaz and A. Kato and S. Na and N. Mikail and H. S. Mayberg and R. Montague and I. Saez and X. Gu},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.18.752742},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.18.752742v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Single neurons in the human substantia nigra encode social learning signals
AU - A. N. Davis
AU - O. Perl
AU - B. H. Kopell
AU - M. Heflin
AU - Q. X. Fu
AU - S. E. Qasim
AU - Z. Imtiaz
AU - A. Kato
AU - S. Na
AU - N. Mikail
AU - H. S. Mayberg
AU - R. Montague
AU - I. Saez
AU - X. Gu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.18.752742
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.18.752742v1
AB - Humans are remarkable at adapting to changing norms, yet we know little about how the human brain encodes these social signals at the single neuron level. Here, we recorded the activity of single neurons in the substantia nigra and globus pallidus in neurosurgical participants as they played an iterative ultimatum game versus human and computer avatars. Using computational modeling of behavior, we found that putative dopaminergic units in the substantia nigra tracked the valence of norm prediction errors, with greater encoding during gameplay with human versus computer avatars. Analogous analyses in the globus pallidus, a nucleus adjacent to the substantia nigra, found no significant effect. Our results identify a novel role for the substantia nigra in encoding social learning signals.
ER -