An Evolutionary Framework

Aggression, like many social behaviors, is widespread across vertebrate species, underscoring its evolutionary importance. At the same time, species have evolved distinct aggressive strategies shaped by specific ecological pressures. This combination of conservation and diversity suggests that social behaviors emerge from biological processes acting on different evolutionary timescales. Individual social tendencies are relatively stable and trait-like, yet they vary across populations - this variability allows species to evolve in response to ecological shifts over long timescales. In contrast, real-time social dynamics occur rapidly in response to constantly updating social information. Real-time shifts in social behavior likely rely on phylogenetically conserved neural processes bestowed on all individuals in a population - even the most aggressive individuals are able to adapt to real-time social cues. By viewing social behavior through an evolutionary lens, the Newman Lab develops experimental strategies to uncover the neurobiological bases of behavioral phenotypes and their relevance to human behavior.