1
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Wang X, Macinko J, Porfiri M, Sipahi R. Formative reasons for state-to-state influences on firearm acquisition in the U.S. SSM Popul Health 2024; 27:101680. [PMID: 39148747 PMCID: PMC11325079 DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2024.101680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2024] [Revised: 04/10/2024] [Accepted: 05/07/2024] [Indexed: 08/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Objectives Firearm-related crimes and self-inflicted harms pose a significant threat to the safety and well-being of Americans. Investigation of firearm prevalence in the United States (U.S.) has therefore been a center of attention. A critical aspect in this endeavor is to explain whether there are identifiable patterns in firearm acquisition. Methods We view firearm acquisition patterning as a spatio-temporal dynamical system distributed across U.S. states that co-evolves with crime rates, political ideology, income levels, population, and the legal environment. We leverage transfer entropy and exponential random graph models along with publicly available data, to statistically reveal the formative factors in how each state's temporal patterning of firearm acquisition influences other states. Results Results help to explain how and why U.S. states influence each other in their firearm acquisition. We establish that state-to-state influences, or lack thereof, in firearm acquisition patterning are explained by states' percent of gun homicide, firearm law strictness, geographic neighborhood, and citizen ideology. Network-based characteristics, namely, mutuality and transitivity, are also important to explain such influence. Conclusions Results suggest that state policies or programs that reduce gun homicides will also help suppress that state's influence on the patterning of firearm acquisition in other states. Furthermore, states with stricter firearm laws are more likely to influence firearm acquisition in other states, but are themselves shielded from the effects of other states' firearm acquisition patterns. These results inform future research in public health, criminology, and policy making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xu Wang
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - James Macinko
- Department of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Maurizio Porfiri
- Center for Urban Science and Progress, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, 11201, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, 11201, USA
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, 11201, USA
| | - Rifat Sipahi
- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
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2
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Warren WH, Falandays JB, Yoshida K, Wirth TD, Free BA. Human Crowds as Social Networks: Collective Dynamics of Consensus and Polarization. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2024; 19:522-537. [PMID: 37526132 PMCID: PMC10830891 DOI: 10.1177/17456916231186406] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
A ubiquitous type of collective behavior and decision-making is the coordinated motion of bird flocks, fish schools, and human crowds. Collective decisions to move in the same direction, turn right or left, or split into subgroups arise in a self-organized fashion from local interactions between individuals without central plans or designated leaders. Strikingly similar phenomena of consensus (collective motion), clustering (subgroup formation), and bipolarization (splitting into extreme groups) are also observed in opinion formation. As we developed models of crowd dynamics and analyzed crowd networks, we found ourselves going down the same path as models of opinion dynamics in social networks. In this article, we draw out the parallels between human crowds and social networks. We show that models of crowd dynamics and opinion dynamics have a similar mathematical form and generate analogous phenomena in multiagent simulations. We suggest that they can be unified by a common collective dynamics, which may be extended to other psychological collectives. Models of collective dynamics thus offer a means to account for collective behavior and collective decisions without appealing to a priori mental structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- William H Warren
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
| | - J Benjamin Falandays
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
| | - Kei Yoshida
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
| | - Trenton D Wirth
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
| | - Brian A Free
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
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3
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Butail S, Bhattacharya A, Porfiri M. Estimating hidden relationships in dynamical systems: Discovering drivers of infection rates of COVID-19. CHAOS (WOODBURY, N.Y.) 2024; 34:033117. [PMID: 38457848 DOI: 10.1063/5.0156338] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 02/12/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024]
Abstract
Discovering causal influences among internal variables is a fundamental goal of complex systems research. This paper presents a framework for uncovering hidden relationships from limited time-series data by combining methods from nonlinear estimation and information theory. The approach is based on two sequential steps: first, we reconstruct a more complete state of the underlying dynamical system, and second, we calculate mutual information between pairs of internal state variables to detail causal dependencies. Equipped with time-series data related to the spread of COVID-19 from the past three years, we apply this approach to identify the drivers of falling and rising infections during the three main waves of infection in the Chicago metropolitan region. The unscented Kalman filter nonlinear estimation algorithm is implemented on an established epidemiological model of COVID-19, which we refine to include isolation, masking, loss of immunity, and stochastic transition rates. Through the systematic study of mutual information between infection rate and various stochastic parameters, we find that increased mobility, decreased mask use, and loss of immunity post sickness played a key role in rising infections, while falling infections were controlled by masking and isolation.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Butail
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA
| | - A Bhattacharya
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA
| | - M Porfiri
- Center for Urban Science and Progress, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, New York 11201, USA
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4
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Burbano D, Senthilkumar S, Manzini MC. Exploring emotional contagion in zebrafish: A virtual-demonstrator study of positive and negative emotions. Behav Processes 2023; 213:104961. [PMID: 37897852 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2023.104961] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2023] [Revised: 10/17/2023] [Accepted: 10/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/30/2023]
Abstract
Emotional contagion, the transmission of emotions within a group, has been extensively studied in mammals but remains largely unexplored in fish. This study aims to investigate whether emotional contagion, specifically in terms of low and high anxiety levels, can be evoked in zebrafish. This freshwater species has been gaining momentum due to its high genetic homology to humans and complex behavioral repertoire, making it well-suited for exploring social behavior. Our hypothesis posits that zebrafish have the ability to transmit positive and negative emotions to one another through visual cues only and that this transmission is robust over time. To test this, we employed a virtual demonstrator fish approach, where videos of zebrafish exhibiting either high or low geotactic behavior were shown to live zebrafish. Geotaxis, the tendency of a fish to spend more time at the bottom of the tank, is a sensitive measure of anxiety, with high geotactic behavior corresponding to high anxiety levels and vice versa. Our findings indicate that the virtual demonstrator successfully transmitted emotional states to the live fish, as evidenced by changes in the time spent at the bottom of the tank, linear acceleration, and fast-turning maneuvers, metrics that quantify anxiety-like behaviors such as geotaxis and erratic movements. Additionally, we conducted a causal analysis using a transfer entropy approach, revealing a significant flow of information from the virtual demonstrator fish to the live fish, indicating the efficacy and potential of this approach in studying emotional contagion. This study provides additional empirical evidence of how visual cues alone from a virtual demonstrator exhibiting high or low anxious behavior can elicit similar behavioral states in bystander fish, highlighting the potential for emotional contagion beyond mammalian and avian models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Burbano
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, 94 Brett Road, Piscataway 08854, NJ, USA.
| | - Sahana Senthilkumar
- School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, 35 College Avenue, New Brunswick 08901, NY, USA
| | - M Chiara Manzini
- Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Child Health Institute of New Jersey, 89 French Street, New Brunswick 08901, NY, USA
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5
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Messenger DA, Wheeler GE, Liu X, Bortz DM. Learning anisotropic interaction rules from individual trajectories in a heterogeneous cellular population. J R Soc Interface 2022; 19:20220412. [PMCID: PMC9554727 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2022.0412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Interacting particle system (IPS) models have proven to be highly successful for describing the spatial movement of organisms. However, it is challenging to infer the interaction rules directly from data. In the field of equation discovery, the weak-form sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics (WSINDy) methodology has been shown to be computationally efficient for identifying the governing equations of complex systems from noisy data. Motivated by the success of IPS models to describe the spatial movement of organisms, we develop WSINDy for the second-order IPS to learn equations for communities of cells. Our approach learns the directional interaction rules for each individual cell that in aggregate govern the dynamics of a heterogeneous population of migrating cells. To sort a cell according to the active classes present in its model, we also develop a novel ad hoc classification scheme (which accounts for the fact that some cells do not have enough evidence to accurately infer a model). Aggregated models are then constructed hierarchically to simultaneously identify different species of cells present in the population and determine best-fit models for each species. We demonstrate the efficiency and proficiency of the method on several test scenarios, motivated by common cell migration experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel A. Messenger
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0526, USA
| | - Graycen E. Wheeler
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0526, USA
| | - Xuedong Liu
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0526, USA
| | - David M. Bortz
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0526, USA
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6
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Celli P, Porfiri M. The detection matrix as a model-agnostic tool to estimate the number of degrees of freedom in mechanical systems and engineering structures. CHAOS (WOODBURY, N.Y.) 2022; 32:033106. [PMID: 35364822 DOI: 10.1063/5.0083767] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2021] [Accepted: 02/15/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Estimating the number of degrees of freedom of a mechanical system or an engineering structure from the time-series of a small set of sensors is a basic problem in diagnostics, which, however, is often overlooked when monitoring health and integrity. In this work, we demonstrate the applicability of the network-theoretic concept of detection matrix as a tool to solve this problem. From this estimation, we illustrate the possibility to identify damage. The detection matrix, recently introduced by Haehne et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 158301 (2019)] in the context of network theory, is assembled from the transient response of a few nodes as a result of non-zero initial conditions: its rank offers an estimate of the number of nodes in the network itself. The use of the detection matrix is completely model-agnostic, whereby it does not require any knowledge of the system dynamics. Here, we show that, with a few modifications, this same principle applies to discrete systems, such as spring-mass lattices and trusses. Moreover, we discuss how damage in one or more members causes the appearance of distinct jumps in the singular values of this matrix, thereby opening the door to structural health monitoring applications, without the need for a complete model reconstruction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paolo Celli
- Department of Civil Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA
| | - Maurizio Porfiri
- Center for Urban Science and Progress, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, New York 11201, USA
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7
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Egan JR, Abu-Shah E, Dushek O, Elliott T, MacArthur BD. Fluctuations in T cell receptor and pMHC interactions regulate T cell activation. J R Soc Interface 2022; 19:20210589. [PMID: 35135295 PMCID: PMC8833104 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0589] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Adaptive immune responses depend on interactions between T cell receptors (TCRs) and peptide major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) ligands located on the surface of T cells and antigen presenting cells (APCs), respectively. As TCRs and pMHCs are often only present at low copy numbers their interactions are inherently stochastic, yet the role of stochastic fluctuations on T cell function is unclear. Here, we introduce a minimal stochastic model of T cell activation that accounts for serial TCR-pMHC engagement, reversible TCR conformational change and TCR aggregation. Analysis of this model indicates that it is not the strength of binding between the T cell and the APC cell per se that elicits an immune response, but rather the information imparted to the T cell from the encounter, as assessed by the entropy rate of the TCR-pMHC binding dynamics. This view provides an information-theoretic interpretation of T cell activation that explains a range of experimental observations. Based on this analysis, we propose that effective T cell therapeutics may be enhanced by optimizing the inherent stochasticity of TCR-pMHC binding dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph R Egan
- Mathematical Sciences, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Institute for Life Sciences, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Centre for Cancer Immunology, University Hospital Southampton, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK.,Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK
| | - Enas Abu-Shah
- Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK.,Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7FY, UK
| | - Omer Dushek
- Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK
| | - Tim Elliott
- Institute for Life Sciences, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Centre for Cancer Immunology, University Hospital Southampton, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK.,Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK
| | - Ben D MacArthur
- Mathematical Sciences, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Institute for Life Sciences, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Centre for Human Development, Stem Cells and Regeneration, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.,Alan Turing Institute, London NW1 2DB, UK
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8
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Ouellette N. A physics perspective on collective animal behavior. Phys Biol 2022; 19. [PMID: 35038691 DOI: 10.1088/1478-3975/ac4bef] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2021] [Accepted: 01/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
The beautiful dynamic patterns and coordinated motion displayed by groups of social animals are a beautiful example of self-organization in natural farfrom-equilibrium systems. Recent advances in active-matter physics have enticed physicists to begin to consider how their results can be extended from microscale physical or biological systems to groups of real, macroscopic animals. At the same time, advances in measurement technology have led to the increasing availability of high-quality empirical data for the behavior of animal groups both in the laboratory and in the wild. In this review, I survey this available data and the ways that it has been analyzed. I then describe how physicists have approached synthesizing, modeling, and interpreting this information, both at the level of individual animals and at the group scale. In particular, I focus on the kinds of analogies that physicists have made between animal groups and more traditional areas of physics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicholas Ouellette
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, California, 94305-6104, UNITED STATES
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9
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Valentini G, Pavlic TP, Walker SI, Pratt SC, Biro D, Sasaki T. Naïve individuals promote collective exploration in homing pigeons. eLife 2021; 10:e68653. [PMID: 34928230 PMCID: PMC8687659 DOI: 10.7554/elife.68653] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2021] [Accepted: 10/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Group-living animals that rely on stable foraging or migratory routes can develop behavioural traditions to pass route information down to inexperienced individuals. Striking a balance between exploitation of social information and exploration for better alternatives is essential to prevent the spread of maladaptive traditions. We investigated this balance during cumulative route development in the homing pigeon Columba livia. We quantified information transfer within pairs of birds in a transmission-chain experiment and determined how birds with different levels of experience contributed to the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Newly introduced naïve individuals were initially more likely to initiate exploration than experienced birds, but the pair soon settled into a pattern of alternating leadership with both birds contributing equally. Experimental pairs showed an oscillating pattern of exploration over generations that might facilitate the discovery of more efficient routes. Our results introduce a new perspective on the roles of leadership and information pooling in the context of collective learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriele Valentini
- Arizona State University, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, United States
| | - Theodore P Pavlic
- Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, School of Sustainability, Athens, United States
- Arizona State University, School of Complex Adaptive Systems, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, Tempe, United States
| | - Sara Imari Walker
- Arizona State University, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Tempe, United States
- Arizona State University, School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Tempe, United States
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, United States
| | - Stephen C Pratt
- Arizona State University, Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Tempe, United States
| | - Dora Biro
- University of Oxford, Department of Zoology, Oxford, United States
- University of Rochester, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Rochester, United States
| | - Takao Sasaki
- University of Georgia, Odum School of Ecology, Athens, United States
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10
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Burbano Lombana DA, Macrì S, Porfiri M. Collective Emotional Contagion in Zebrafish. Front Behav Neurosci 2021; 15:730372. [PMID: 34566596 PMCID: PMC8458645 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.730372] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2021] [Accepted: 08/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Seeking to match our emotional state with one of those around us is known as emotional contagion-a fundamental biological process that underlies social behavior across several species and taxa. While emotional contagion has been traditionally considered to be a prerogative of mammals and birds, recent findings are demonstrating otherwise. Here, we investigate emotional contagion in groups of zebrafish, a freshwater model species which is gaining momentum in preclinical studies. Zebrafish have high genetic homology to humans, and they exhibit a complex behavioral repertoire amenable to study social behavior. To investigate whether individual emotional states can be transmitted to group members, we pharmacologically modulated anxiety-related behaviors of a single fish through Citalopram administration and we assessed whether the altered emotional state spread to a group of four untreated conspecifics. By capitalizing upon our in-house developed tracking algorithm, we successfully preserved the identity of all the subjects and thoroughly described their individual and social behavioral phenotypes. In accordance with our predictions, we observed that Citalopram administration consistently reduced behavioral anxiety of the treated individual, in the form of reduced geotaxis, and that such a behavioral pattern readily generalized to the untreated subjects. A transfer entropy analysis of causal interactions within the group revealed that emotional contagion was directional, whereby the treated individual influenced untreated subjects, but not vice-versa. This study offers additional evidence that emotional contagion is biologically preserved in simpler living organisms amenable to preclinical investigations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Alberto Burbano Lombana
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, United States
| | - Simone Macrì
- Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, Rome, Italy
| | - Maurizio Porfiri
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, United States.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, United States.,Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, United States
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11
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McEntire KD, Gage M, Gawne R, Hadfield MG, Hulshof C, Johnson MA, Levesque DL, Segura J, Pinter-Wollman N. Understanding Drivers of Variation and Predicting Variability Across Levels of Biological Organization. Integr Comp Biol 2021; 61:2119-2131. [PMID: 34259842 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icab160] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2021] [Revised: 07/06/2021] [Accepted: 07/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Differences within a biological system are ubiquitous, creating variation in nature. Variation underlies all evolutionary processes and allows persistence and resilience in changing environments; thus, uncovering the drivers of variation is critical. The growing recognition that variation is central to biology presents a timely opportunity for determining unifying principles that drive variation across biological levels of organization. Currently, most studies that consider variation are focused at a single biological level and not integrated into a broader perspective. Here we explain what variation is and how it can be measured. We then discuss the importance of variation in natural systems, and briefly describe the biological research that has focused on variation. We outline some of the barriers and solutions to studying variation and its drivers in biological systems. Finally, we detail the challenges and opportunities that may arise when studying the drivers of variation due to the multi-level nature of biological systems. Examining the drivers of variation will lead to a reintegration of biology. It will further forge interdisciplinary collaborations and open opportunities for training diverse quantitative biologists. We anticipate that these insights will inspire new questions and new analytic tools to study the fundamental questions of what drives variation in biological systems and how variation has shaped life.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | - Danielle L Levesque
- University of Maine College of Natural Sciences Forestry and Agriculture, School of Biology and Ecology
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12
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Ebbesen CL, Froemke RC. Body language signals for rodent social communication. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2021; 68:91-106. [PMID: 33582455 PMCID: PMC8243782 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2021.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2020] [Revised: 01/09/2021] [Accepted: 01/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
Integration of social cues to initiate adaptive emotional and behavioral responses is a fundamental aspect of animal and human behavior. In humans, social communication includes prominent nonverbal components, such as social touch, gestures and facial expressions. Comparative studies investigating the neural basis of social communication in rodents has historically been centered on olfactory signals and vocalizations, with relatively less focus on non-verbal social cues. Here, we outline two exciting research directions: First, we will review recent observations pointing to a role of social facial expressions in rodents. Second, we will review observations that point to a role of 'non-canonical' rodent body language: body posture signals beyond stereotyped displays in aggressive and sexual behavior. In both sections, we will outline how social neuroscience can build on recent advances in machine learning, robotics and micro-engineering to push these research directions forward towards a holistic systems neurobiology of rodent body language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian L Ebbesen
- Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, Neuroscience Institute, Departments of Otolaryngology, Neuroscience and Physiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA; Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA.
| | - Robert C Froemke
- Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, Neuroscience Institute, Departments of Otolaryngology, Neuroscience and Physiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA; Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar, USA.
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13
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Hansen M, Burns A, Monk C, Schutz C, Lizier J, Ramnarine I, Ward A, Krause J. The effect of predation risk on group behaviour and information flow during repeated collective decisions. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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14
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Roy S. Quantifying interactions among car drivers using information theory. CHAOS (WOODBURY, N.Y.) 2020; 30:113125. [PMID: 33261358 DOI: 10.1063/5.0023243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2020] [Accepted: 10/26/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Information-theoretic quantities have found wide applications in understanding interactions in complex systems primarily due to their non-parametric nature and ability to capture non-linear relationships. Increasingly popular among these tools is conditional transfer entropy, also known as causation entropy. In the present work, we leverage this tool to study the interaction among car drivers for the first time. Specifically, we investigate whether a driver responds to its immediate front and its immediate rear car to the same extent and whether we can separately quantify these responses. Using empirical data, we learn about the important features related to human driving behavior. Results demonstrate the evidence that drivers respond to both front and rear cars, and the response to their immediate front car increases in the presence of jammed traffic. Our approach provides a data-driven perspective to study interactions and is expected to aid in analyzing traffic dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Subhradeep Roy
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, California State University, Northridge, Los Angeles, California 91330, USA
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15
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Shaffer I, Abaid N. Transfer Entropy Analysis of Interactions between Bats Using Position and Echolocation Data. ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2020; 22:E1176. [PMID: 33286944 PMCID: PMC7597347 DOI: 10.3390/e22101176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2020] [Revised: 10/09/2020] [Accepted: 10/12/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Many animal species, including many species of bats, exhibit collective behavior where groups of individuals coordinate their motion. Bats are unique among these animals in that they use the active sensing mechanism of echolocation as their primary means of navigation. Due to their use of echolocation in large groups, bats run the risk of signal interference from sonar jamming. However, several species of bats have developed strategies to prevent interference, which may lead to different behavior when flying with conspecifics than when flying alone. This study seeks to explore the role of this acoustic sensing on the behavior of bat pairs flying together. Field data from a maternity colony of gray bats (Myotis grisescens) were collected using an array of cameras and microphones. These data were analyzed using the information theoretic measure of transfer entropy in order to quantify the interaction between pairs of bats and to determine the effect echolocation calls have on this interaction. This study expands on previous work that only computed information theoretic measures on the 3D position of bats without echolocation calls or that looked at the echolocation calls without using information theoretic analyses. Results show that there is evidence of information transfer between bats flying in pairs when time series for the speed of the bats and their turning behavior are used in the analysis. Unidirectional information transfer was found in some subsets of the data which could be evidence of a leader-follower interaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irena Shaffer
- Engineering Mechanics Program, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA;
| | - Nicole Abaid
- Department of Mathematics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
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Samson JE, Ray DD, Porfiri M, Miller LA, Garnier S. Collective Pulsing in Xeniid Corals: Part I-Using Computer Vision and Information Theory to Search for Coordination. Bull Math Biol 2020; 82:90. [PMID: 32638174 DOI: 10.1007/s11538-020-00759-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2019] [Accepted: 06/04/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Xeniid corals (Cnidaria: Alcyonacea), a family of soft corals, include species displaying a characteristic pulsing behavior. This behavior has been shown to increase oxygen diffusion away from the coral tissue, resulting in higher photosynthetic rates from mutualistic symbionts. Maintaining such a pulsing behavior comes at a high energetic cost, and it has been proposed that coordinating the pulse of individual polyps within a colony might enhance the efficiency of fluid transport. In this paper, we test whether patterns of collective pulsing emerge in coral colonies and investigate possible interactions between polyps within a colony. We video recorded different colonies of Heteroxenia sp. in a laboratory environment. Our methodology is based on the systematic integration of a computer vision algorithm (ISOMAP) and an information-theoretic approach (transfer entropy), offering a vantage point to assess coordination in collective pulsing. Perhaps surprisingly, we did not detect any form of collective pulsing behavior in the colonies. Using artificial data sets, however, we do demonstrate that our methodology is capable of detecting even weak information transfer. The lack of a coordination is consistent with previous work on many cnidarians where coordination between actively pulsing polyps and medusa has not been observed. In our companion paper, we show that there is no fluid dynamic benefit of coordinated pulsing, supporting this result. The lack of coordination coupled with no obvious fluid dynamic benefit to grouping suggests that there may be non-fluid mechanical advantages to forming colonies, such as predator avoidance and defense.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia E Samson
- Biology Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Constance, Germany.,Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany
| | - Dylan D Ray
- Department of Mathematics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Maurizio Porfiri
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering, New York University, Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY, USA
| | - Laura A Miller
- Biology Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.,Department of Mathematics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Simon Garnier
- Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA.
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