How social experiences shape behavior
In a German-US collaboration with participation of the European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen (ENI-G), researchers have shown that fruit flies can adapt their social behavior and learn from these experiences. These fundamental mechanisms of social information processing are also important for understanding mental illness. The results have been published in the journal Current Biology. Based on these findings a follow-up project is being funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation with more than 400,000 Euros over two years.
Published: 10.03.2026
Many animals – including mammals, birds, and insects – learn from social experiences. They adapt their behavior to previous interactions, thereby increasing their chances of survival and reproduction. However, how social experiences shape behavior is still poorly understood.
Dr. Frederic Alexander Römschied, group leader at the European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen (ENI-G) – a collaboration between the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences – has shown, in collaboration with researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA, that male fruit flies, like humans, can flexibly adapt their behavior to changing social conditions. Using a novel method, the researchers succeeded in controlling the behavior of interacting flies, even against their natural instincts. To do this, the flies' nerve cells were genetically modified so that they could be specifically activated using LED light. The result: if a fly behaves differently than usual, its counterpart learns from this experience and develops new behavioral strategies to adapt.
“We can now experimentally control social experiences and then examine how behavior adapts to these experiences,” says Dr. Römschied, first and last author. “This provides us with a basis for understanding how individual social experiences influence neural processes in the long term, enabling learning from social experience. These mechanisms of social information processing are also important for understanding mental illness and could contribute to the development of new treatment approaches in the long term.”
The results have been published in the journal Current Biology.
Frederic A. Roemschied, Elise C. Ireland, Adam J. Calhoun, Minseung Choi, Osama M. Ahmed, Mala Murthy. Recent social experience alters song behavior in Drosophila. Current Biology (2026): DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.02.003
