Extended Data Fig. 5: Additional analyses of VTA DA signals and electrophysiology.

(a-b) Mean Z-scored (mean ± s.e.m) VTA DA activity on day 1 aligned to food consumption (a) and own lever presses (b) by sex. (c) Per-mouse trial averages of Z-scored VTA DA activity aligned to food consumption, own LPs, and conspecific LPs, shown separately for Workers (Top, black) and Scroungers (Bottom, red). Responses were quantified as post- vs pre-event windows and compared using paired t-tests or Wilcoxon signed-rank test (see Methods) (d-g) Peak activity at own LPs (d, f) and conspecific LPs (e, g) as a function of distance to each archetype with linear regression (lm) fits. (h) In vivo electrophysiological recording in anesthetized mice post-microsociety experiment; representative traces of DA neuron firing in male and female mice. (i) Percentage of spikes within bursts (%SWB) for each recorded VTA DA neuron in male and female mice, either naive or after 7 days of microsociety experiment (Post), shown per neuron (Left) and per mouse (Right) (Wilcoxon rank-sum tests; p values Holm-adjusted for multiple comparisons). (j) Estimated %SWB at zero distance from each archetype (linear model with Archetype × Distance interaction, with post hoc contrasts using emmeans and Tukey adjustment; mean ± 95% CI). Experimental data are presented as mean ± s.e.m.; model-based estimates are reported as mean ± 95% CI. Shaded areas indicate 95% CI of the regression fit. Details (test statistics, df, exact p values) are reported in Supplementary Table 1. All tests were two-sided unless otherwise stated. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001.