Andy’s Quick Hits (258): Brain Network For Social Attraction Identified

Humans do it. Birds do it. Fish do it. So do multitudes of other species. We flock together, come together, are attracted to our kind. We are a social species.

But the question is what makes us behave in this way? Or more specifically which brain circuits activate to make us want to do this and guide our behaviour to actually come together? This has been a mystery to researchers — but we do know of certain chemicals and hormones that drive this behaviour in human beings (see my review of oxytocin here).

Now researchers around Johannes M. Kappel at the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft have managed to identify a visual brain circuit that triggers social flocking.

They did this in zebrafish. To some people, I know, it sometimes sounds strange to use various animals to find these circuits and then apply this to human beings. But there are very good reasons for this including simplicity of brains and also ethical issues. It does also clearly identify mechanisms in the brain.

So, what did they find?

Well, the research into zebra fish larvae shows that they cannot resist being attracted to other zebra fish larvae. But this is related to how they swim; they have a particular jerky swimming motion. First off, the researchers…