美国加利福尼亚大学圣地亚哥分校Matthew Lovett-Barron课题组在研究中取得进展。他们发现了神经元对社会行为的探测指导集体逃跑行为。相关论文于2026年9月23日发表在《自然》杂志上。

群体中的动物从社会伙伴获取信息以进行适应性行为。社会信息传递在鱼群、鸟群和人类群体中均有观察到，但对此类通过社会获取的信息的神经表征仍知之甚少。在此，研究人员表明，在集群玻璃鱼 Danionella cerebrum 中，对危险的集体逃逸可由个体对其他逃逸动物的视觉感知所介导。为了理解社会传递的逃逸行为的神经基础，研究人员对成年玻璃鱼观看虚拟同种个体行为时的神经活动进行了成像。中脑视顶盖和丘脑中的视觉神经元在虚拟同种个体逃逸时活动增强。对逃逸有反应的神经元也对虚拟鱼的突然消失作出反应，但不受以非生物线性运动移动的刺激消失的影响。在行为上，鱼会从逃逸或消失的虚拟鱼群处退避，但仅当这些虚拟鱼以生物性的爆发-滑行运动游动时才如此。对这种快速社会性消失的神经编码使鱼能够仅从社会信息推断危险，这对于能够快速移动但视觉范围有限的动物可能是一种有效策略。这些结果展示了个体的神经计算如何使集体中的快速信息共享成为可能。

附：英文原文

Title: Neuronal detection of social actions directs collective escape behaviour

Author: Yu, Jo-Hsien, Meyerhof, Geoff T., Milan, Jimjohn, Napoli, Julia L., Lovett-Barron, Matthew

Issue&Volume: 2026-09-23

Abstract: Animals in groups obtain information from social partners to engage in adaptive behaviour1,2,3. Social information transmission is observed in fish schools4,5,6, bird flocks7,8 and human groups9,10, but the neural representation of such socially acquired information is poorly understood3,11,12. Here we show that, in the schooling glassfish Danionella cerebrum13,14,15, 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 tectum16,17 and thalamus18 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 range14,19. These results show how the neural computations of individuals enable rapid information sharing in collectives.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11041-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-11041-1