Cortical representation of group social communication in bats

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aba9584
• Publication Date: 2021-10-22T03:58:48Z
• Authors: Maimon C. Rose; Boaz Styr; Tobias A. Schmid; Julie E. Elie; Michael M. Yartsev
• Keywords: Social Communication; Social animal; Representation

Social interactions occur in group settings and are mediated by communication signals that exchanged between individuals, often using vocalizations. The neural representation of social remains largely unexplored. We conducted simultaneous wireless electrophysiological recordings from the frontal cortices groups Egyptian fruit bats engaged both spontaneous task-induced vocal interactions. found activity single neurons distinguished vocalizations produced self others, as well among specific individuals. Coordinated members exhibited stable bidirectional interbrain correlation patterns to communicative Tracking spatial arrangements within a revealed relationship preferences intra- patterns. Combined, these findings reveal dedicated repertoire for across brains freely communicating bats.