Data for: Coordination and persistence of aggressive visual communication in Siamese fighting fish

Animals coordinate their behavior with each other during both cooperative
and agonistic social interactions. Such coordination often adopts the form
of “turn-taking”, in which the interactive partners alternate the
performance of a behavior. Apart from acoustic communication, how
turn-taking between animals is coordinated is not well understood.
Furthermore, the neural substrates that regulate persistence in engaging
in social interactions are poorly studied. Here, we use Siamese fighting
fish (Betta splendens) to study visually driven turn-taking aggressive
behavior. Using encounters with conspecifics and with animations, we
characterize the dynamic visual features of an opponent and the behavioral
sequences that drive turn-taking. Through a brain-wide screen of neuronal
activity during coordinated and persistent aggressive behavior, followed
by targeted brain lesions, we find that the caudal portion of the
dorsomedial telencephalon, an amygdala-like region, promotes persistent
participation in aggressive interactions, yet is not necessary for
coordination. Our work highlights how dynamic visual cues shape the rhythm
of social interactions at multiple timescales, and points to the pallial
amygdala as a region controlling engagement in such interactions. These
results suggest an evolutionarily conserved role of the vertebrate pallial
amygdala in regulating the persistence of emotional states.