Mice make decisions, encoded by unique cortical populations, to self-organize into group huddles for warmth. Silencing these populations in some members decreases their huddling decisions and triggers compensatory increases in other animals, which reveals how individual neural activity shapes group behavior.
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This is a summary of: Raam, T. et al. Cortical regulation of collective social dynamics during environmental challenge. Nat. Neurosci. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02224-0 (2026).
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Prefrontal neurons govern who initiates and who follows in a huddling group. Nat Neurosci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02245-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02245-9
