Surprising Discovery on the Social Brain

Today’s quick brain update looks at a surprising discovery in how bat’s brains encode social information.

You did say “bat’s brains”

Yes, I often report on various animal studies because this gives us strong clues as to how brains in general work.

And do bats have friends and social networks?

Well, we obviously know that most bats live in large colonies together and so there are all sorts of social interactions together. The bats used were Egyptian fruit bats but the researchers used an innovative technique to measure brain activity while flying and resting in a large flight room i.e. in a naturalistic environment.

And what did they do?

Angelo Forli and Michael Yartsev of the University of California used wireless technology to measure activity in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. Because it was wireless they could measure them in more natural interactions and while flying (and also specific brain cells – neurons).

And what did they discover that was surprising?

Well, as I said they had wired up the hippocampus in the brain. This area is very well researched and known for its involvement in memory but particularly in navigation – that’s why it is interesting to measure in bats. There are different navigation brain cells but some are called place neurons because they activate to specific places.

What was particularly surprising is that they noticed that when finding landing spots that place neurons activated as expected but if another bat was already there the place neurons also seems to activate to this. What’s more the specific identify of the bat seemed to also be encoded in the same area.

This was also the same while flying!

So the bat’s navigation areas was also activating to social cues?

Precisely, and this is the first time that social identity representation have been found in non-primate brains. And that this is encoded in the hippocampus is also surprising. But then again social environments also need navigation.

The other surprise is that this research yielded any useful information at all – the researchers were unsure about how useful the information would be in free flying bats because of the complexities of behaviour. However, the bats showed structured behaviour preferring specific landing spots and other bat “friends”.

Do bats have friends?

Yes, in a batty type of way. This research also showed that bats preferred specific spots to land and rest in but also they preferred their bat friends – landing close to and often on top of these friends!

Ok so what have we learnt?

Lots. Place neurons have been well researched but 99% of that is with single animals moving in structured spaces. This shows how refined these neurons are and that they are also used to navigate social spaces. That is very interesting for us humans as well.

It is also consistent with what we know about damage to the hippocampus which can cause issues in multiple areas including social navigation.

The hippocampus was not considered a social part of the brain – and this shows how deeply embedded this social navigation functions is to many animals – especially humans. And how important!

So navigate social environments well

If you have a healthy hippocampus – and remember social connections are very good for you for many other reasons. So use your hippocampus to seek out your friends!