Economic and Social Modulations of Innate Decision-Making in Mice Exposed to Visual Threats

When confronted by a predator, most animals make innate decisions with rapid reaction times – a trait shaped by natural selection to maximize survival. However, in complex and dynamic environments, fast reactions are meaningful only when grounded in accurate judgments and correct choices, which often require cognitive control. Here, we investigate how threat intensity, reward value, and social hierarchy influence behavioral decisions in foraging mice exposed to overhead visual threats. We find that threat intensity plays a dominant role in decision-making: elevated threat levels trigger robust defensive responses, including shorter latencies to flee, increased fleeing speeds, and longer escape distances. The influence of reward is context-dependent: at low threat levels, higher reward values suppress defensive responses, leading to prolonged time in the reward zone, slower speeds, and shorter escape distances. In contrast, under high-threat conditions, increasing reward value enhances sensitivity to threats, as evidenced by shorter latencies to flee and heightened vigilance. Social hierarchy further shapes decision-making, with dominant mice exhibiting greater vigilance and a stronger preference for risk-averse behaviors compared to subordinates. To quantify the decision-making process, we developed a drift-diffusion leaky integrator model that successfully captures how mice integrate threat intensity, reward value, and vigilance into their behavioral decisions. Our findings reveal the economic and social modulation of survival decisions, offering insights into the computational mechanisms underlying the interplay between instinctive reaction and cognitive control in innate decision-making.