Aggression experience and observation drive shared behavioural and neural changes.

Aggression observation and direct experience produce a shared adaptive behavioural strategy in a novel aggression context, linked to widespread reduction in inhibition across a core aggression network.

• Why it matters: It is unclear whether observing aggression and using that information engages the same circuit mechanisms as direct aggression experience to update future social action.
• What they did: The study used large-scale, cell-type-specific longitudinal recordings across subcortical networks while animals trained via direct aggression experience or observation, then tested behaviour and neural activity in a novel aggression context. Multiregion modelling identified shared core-network changes, and inhibition was experimentally tested for necessity.
• The result: After training, shared neural changes persisted into the novel context, and inhibition reduction was necessary for adaptive behavioural change, showing observation can recruit experience-like inhibitory plasticity.

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