Talks & Lectures - 2025

Sanja Bauer Mikulovic (Magdeburg)

Neural mechanisms underlying helping in mice
September 9, 2025, 3 PM, Michael Lankeit Lecture Hall, German Primate Center

Prosocial behaviors, such as helping others in need, are fundamental for social cohesion across species. While key brain regions involved in rescue behavior have been identified, the underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. The hippocampus—best known for its roles in memory and spatial navigation—also contributes to emotional and social processing, yet its specific involvement in prosocial behavior is unclear. In this talk, I will present findings from a series of experiments investigating the causal role of the hippocampus in the acquisition and execution of rescue behavior in mice. Using chemogenetics, we demonstrate that the dorsal hippocampus is essential for learning to help. Calcium imaging reveals network consolidation in the dorsal hippocampus during successful rescues, with synchronized cell assemblies and distinct activity patterns linked to liberations. Additionally, I will share SPECT imaging data showing sex-specific patterns of brain-wide activation in helping males and females. Finally, I will present evidence of how long-term social interaction within correlate with helping behavior. Together, these results underscore the importance of hippocampal function and social context in the regulation of prosocial actions.

Joah Madden (Exeter)

How does cognition determine an individual’s fitness? A systematic review of the links between cognition, behaviour and fitness in non-human animals
July 15, 2025, 10 AM, Michael Lankeit Lecture Hall, German Primate Center

Recent efforts to understand the evolution of cognition have adopted a within-species approach where cognitive performances, and its effects on behaviour, are correlated with fitness benefits and, if related, are assumed to be selected for. We reviewed 45 studies taking this approach, involving 26 species and describing 211 relationships between behavioural measures of cognition and fitness, to explore broader patterns underlying the evolution of cognition. First, we explored patterns in the strength and direction of selection. We found generally weak support for a relationship between cognition and fitness, with >70% of raw published relationships being statistically non-significant, with an even smaller likelihood once co-variates were accounted for. Where significant relationships were found, they were predominantly, but not exclusively, positive, with individuals exhibiting faster learning or more accurate memory also displaying greater (proxy) fitness. Second, we tested how selection might act under different circumstances. A relationship with fitness was more likely when general, rather than specific cognitive abilities were considered, and when the fitness measure corresponded to survival rather than reproductive output. Consequently, the study of within-species cognitive evolution remains in its early stages, with evidence that is both incomplete and inconclusive. However, it potentially offers a powerful opportunity to explore the structure of cognition, trade-offs, constraints and the way that it links to behaviours.

Ahmed El Hady (Konstanz)

Integration from trained to natural behaviors
May 22, 2025, 3 PM, Michael Lankeit Lecture Hall, German Primate Center

To survive in an uncertain and dynamic environment, animals need to integrate the relevant information in their environment. Systems neuroscientists have conventionally simplified and made this problem more tractable by studying trained behaviors where they train animals to integrate sensory evidence. This idealization has allowed neuroscientific investigation into neural mechanisms underlying integration. In my talk, I will present theoretical work showing that integration, as a behavioral computation, can be extended from the realm of trained behaviors to (social) foraging behaviors performed by animals naturally thus bridging a much needed gap between mechanistic models in systems neuroscience and behavioural ecology. This modeling approach opens up the opportunity to quantitatively study neural mechanisms of naturalistic decision making.