Circuit-Level Computations of Social Opportunity Costs under Foraging Constraints

Animals routinely face the challenge of deciding when to remain with a valuable social partner versus seeking resources that satisfy immediate physiological needs, yet existing theories treat these decision domains in isolation. We hypothesize that a shared temporal currency, computed by interconnected prefrontal and amygdalar circuits, enables moment-to-moment arbitration between social opportunity and homeostatic drive. Our long- term goal is to establish social decision-making within a foraging context, enabling the examination of its underlying neural and genetic mechanisms. Our objective is to reveal how the hierarchical organization of the prefrontal–amygdala circuit maps onto the hierarchically structured dynamics of social foraging decisions. To achieve these goal we will leverage a uniquely naturalistic social--foraging paradigm—where mice shuttle between a social patch and a water patch while encountering variable travel costs and a manipulable history of partner encounters—we will: Aim 1 quantify and model the decision rules that govern social– hydration trade-offs; Aim 2 causally map the underlying computations with closed-loop, computation-contingent optogenetics. This study will close a fundamental gap by providing the first integrated, experimentally validated framework that unifies ecological theory, computation, and circuit mechanisms of adaptive social decision-making. Project Number: 1R15NS149434-01 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) | Principal Investigator: Ebru Demir | Institution: SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE, CARBONDALE, IL | Award Amount: $546,335 | Activity Code: R15 | Study Section: Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Study Section[NMB] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11361350