Neural basis of cooperative behavior in biological and artificial intelligence systems

Cooperation, the process through which individuals work together to achieve common goals, is fundamental to human and animal societies and increasingly critical in artificial intelligence (AI). In this study, we investigated cooperation in mice and AI systems, examining how they learn to actively coordinate their actions to obtain shared rewards. We identified key social behavioral strategies and decision-making processes in mice that facilitate successful cooperation. These processes are represented in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and ACC activity causally contributes to cooperative behavior. We extended our findings to AI systems by training artificial agents in a similar cooperation task. The agents developed behavioral strategies and neural representations reminiscent of those observed in the biological brain, revealing parallels between cooperative behavior in biological and artificial systems.