Hippocampus Guides Adaptive Learning during Dynamic Social Interactions

How do we evaluate whether someone will make a good friend or collaborative peer? A hallmark of human cognition is the ability to make adaptive decisions based on information garnered from limited prior experiences. Using an interactive social task measuring adaptive choice (deciding who to reengage or avoid) in male and female participants, we find the hippocampus supports value-based social choices following single-shot learning. These adaptive choices elicited a suppression signal in the hippocampus, revealing sensitivity for the subjective perception of a person and how well they treat you during choice. The extent to which the hippocampus was suppressed was associated with flexibly interacting with prior generous individuals and avoiding selfish individuals. Further, we found that hippocampal signals during decision-making were related to subsequent memory for a person and the offer they made before. Consistent with the hippocampus leveraging previously executed choices to solidify a reliable neural signature for future adaptive behavior, we also observed a later hippocampal enhancement. These findings highlight the hippocampus playing a multifaceted role in socially adaptive learning.

Automated summary

Human cognition allows adaptive decisions based on limited prior experiences, and the hippocampus plays a key role in supporting value-based social choices and memory for individuals. It is sensitive to the perception of others and their treatment during choices, aiding in flexible interactions with generous individuals and avoidance of selfish ones. The hippocampus leverages past choices to solidify neural signatures for future adaptive behavior in social learning.