Unravelling the Roles of Bacterial Nanomachines Bistability in Pathogens' Life Cycle.

Bacterial nanomachines represent remarkable feats of evolutionary engineering, showcasing intricate molecular mechanisms that enable bacteria to perform a diverse array of functions essential to persist, thrive, and evolve within ecological and pathological niches. Injectosomes and bacterial flagella represent two categories of bacterial nanomachines that have been particularly well studied both at the molecular and functional levels. Among the diverse functionalities of these nanomachines, bistability emerges as a fascinating phenomenon, underscoring their dynamic and complex regulation as well as their contribution to shaping the bacterial community behavior during the infection process. In this review, we examine two closely related bacterial nanomachines, the type 3 secretion system, and the flagellum, to explore how the bistability of molecular-scale devices shapes the bacterial eco-pathological life cycle.

The Individual Division of Food Hoarding in Autumn Brandt's Voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii).

Brandt's voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii), one of the main non-hibernating rodent species in the typical grassland of Inner Mongolia, live in groups and have the behavioral habit of hoarding food in underground warehouses in autumn to prepare for the winter food shortage ahead. The division of labor and cooperation are typical behavior patterns of gregarious mammals, but it is unclear whether Brandt's voles exercise a division of labor in food hoarding before overwintering. To explore the division of food hoarding in Brandt's voles during the autumn period, three treatments, namely added food, added food + competition, and control, were set up with three replicates. An infrared camera was positioned to observe and record the behavior of Brandt's voles under different treatments. Next, behavioral experiments regarding food-hoarding division were performed on individuals. The results showed that (1) Brandt's voles had two types of hoarding behavior, namely high food hoarding and low food hoarding, but not all individuals displayed hoarding behavior. (2) In all treatments, feeding behavior, which was the most important type of behavior, accounted for the highest proportion of all behaviors. (3) There was no significant difference in body weight and sex between high- and low-food-hoarding individuals of Brandt's voles, and there was no significant difference between high- and low-food-hoarding individuals in other divisions of labor either. (4) There was no significant difference in inquiry ability between high- and low-food-hoarding groups, but there was a significant difference in spatial memory. High-food-hoarding individuals had greater spatial memory. In summary, Brandt's voles had two types of hoarding behavior: high food hoarding and low food hoarding. Furthermore, high-food-hoarding individuals had greater spatial memory.

Engineering Microbial Consortia as Living Materials: Advances and Prospectives.

The field of Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) integrates engineered living organisms into natural biomaterials to achieve diverse objectives. Multiorganism consortia, prevalent in both naturally occurring and synthetic microbial cultures, exhibit complex functionalities and interrelationships, extending the scope of what can be achieved with individual engineered bacterial strains. However, the ELMs comprising microbial consortia are still in the developmental stage. In this Review, we introduce two strategies for designing ELMs constituted of microbial consortia: a top-down strategy, which involves characterizing microbial interactions and mimicking and reconstructing natural ecosystems, and a bottom-up strategy, which entails the rational design of synthetic consortia and their assembly with material substrates to achieve user-defined functions. Next, we summarize technologies from synthetic biology that facilitate the efficient engineering of microbial consortia for performing tasks more complex than those that can be done with single bacterial strains. Finally, we discuss essential challenges and future perspectives for microbial consortia-based ELMs.

Possible interactions between gut microbiome and division of labor in honey bees.

Recent studies have provided new insights into the role of the microbiome in shaping host behavior. However, the relationship between the temporal division of labor among honey bees (Apis mellifera) and their gut microbial community has not been widely studied. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the link between the gut microbiome and division of labor in honey bees by examining the microbial absolute abundance and relative composition of 7-day-old nurse bees and 28-day-old forager bees from a natural hive, as well as those of worker bees of the same 14-day-old age showing different behaviors in a manipulated hive. We found that forager bees had fewer core bacteria, particularly gram-positive fermentative genera such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, with Bifidobacterium asteroides being the most sensitive to host behavioral tasks. Our results showed that forager bees have lower gut community stability compared to nurse bees, suggesting that their gut community is more susceptible to invasion by non-core members. Furthermore, a pollen limitation experiment using caged honey bees indicated that dietary changes during behavioral shifts may be a driving factor in honey bee microbial diversity. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the interaction between the gut microbiome and behavioral tasks and provides a foundation for future assays.

Evolutionary stability of developmental commitment.

Evolution of unicellular to multicellular organisms must resolve conflicts in reproductive interests between individual cells and the group. The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is a soil-living eukaryote with facultative sociality. While cells grow in the presence of nutrients, cells aggregate under starvation to form fruiting bodies containing spores and altruistic stalk cells. Once cells socially committed, they complete formation of fruiting bodies, even if a new source of nutrients becomes available. The persistence of this social commitment raises questions as it inhibits individual cells from swiftly returning to solitary growth. I hypothesize that traits enabling premature de-commitment are hindered from being selected. Recent work has revealed outcomes of the premature de-commitment through forced refeeding; The de-committed cells take an altruistic prestalk-like position due to their reduced cohesiveness through interactions with socially committed cells. I constructed an evolutionary model assuming their division of labor. The results revealed a valley in the fitness landscape that prevented invasion of de-committing mutants, indicating evolutionary stability of the social commitment. The findings provide a general scheme that maintains multicellularity by evolving a specific division of labor, in which less cohesive individuals become altruists.

Organ Evolution: Emergence of Multicellular Function.

Instances of multicellularity across the tree of life have fostered the evolution of complex organs composed of distinct cell types that cooperate, producing emergent biological functions. How organs originate is a fundamental evolutionary problem that has eluded deep mechanistic and conceptual understanding. Here I propose a cell- to organ-level transitions framework, whereby cooperative division of labor originates and becomes entrenched between cell types through a process of functional niche creation, cell-type subfunctionalization, and irreversible ratcheting of cell interdependencies. Comprehending this transition hinges on explaining how these processes unfold molecularly in evolving populations. Recent single-cell transcriptomic studies and analyses of terminal fate specification indicate that cellular functions are conferred by modular gene expression programs. These discrete components of functional variation may be deployed or combined within cells to introduce new properties into multicellular niches, or partitioned across cells to establish division of labor. Tracing gene expression program evolution at the level of single cells in populations may reveal transitions toward organ complexity.

The physical soldier caste of an invasive, human-infecting flatworm is morphologically extreme and obligately sterile.

We show that the globally invasive, human-infectious flatworm, Haplorchis pumilio, possesses the most physically specialized soldier caste yet documented in trematodes. Soldiers occur in colonies infecting the first intermediate host, the freshwater snail Melanoides tuberculata, and are readily distinguishable from immature and mature reproductive worms. Soldiers possess a pharynx five times absolutely larger than those of immature and mature reproductives, lack a germinal mass, and have a different developmental trajectory than reproductives, indicating that H. pumilio soldiers constitute a reproductively sterile physical caste. Neither immature nor mature reproductives showed aggression in in vitro trials, but soldiers readily attacked heterospecific trematodes that coinfect their host. Ecologically, we calculate that H. pumilio caused ~94% of the competitive deaths in the guild of trematodes infecting its host snail in its invasive range in southern California. Despite being a dominant competitor, H. pumilio soldiers did not attack conspecifics from other colonies. All prior reports documenting division of labor and a trematode soldier caste have involved soldiers that may be able to metamorphose to the reproductive stage and have been from nonhuman-infectious marine species; this study provides clear evidence for an obligately sterile trematode soldier, while extending the phenomenon of a trematode soldier caste to freshwater and to an invasive species of global public health concern.

Negotiating Work and Family Spheres: The Dyadic Effects of Flexible Work Arrangements on Fertility Among Dual-Earner Heterosexual Couples.

Academics and policymakers have suggested making flexible work arrangements (FWAs) the default in workplaces to promote a family-friendly workplace culture conducive to having and raising children. However, systematic research investigating how FWAs, as a long-term approach to negotiating work-family spheres, are related to fertility among dual-earner heterosexual couples is limited. Drawing on the linked-lives perspective, we theorize the relationship between FWAs and fertility among couples and potential variation depending on the interplay of both spouses' work and family characteristics. We test our hypotheses using longitudinal couple-level dyadic data in the United Kingdom (2010-2022). We find that although FWA availability alone is unrelated to fertility, wives' (not husbands') FWA use is significantly associated with a higher probability of experiencing a first birth. Moreover, the effect of wives' FWA use is particularly pronounced when both spouses work in professional and managerial occupations and when husbands contribute a larger proportion of income and at least equal housework. This study reveals a gendered effect of FWAs on fertility across work-family arrangements, deepening our understanding of couple-level dynamics in the fertility process.

Doing Genders: Partner's Gender and Labor Market Behavior.

Partnered men and women show consistently gendered patterns of labor market behavior. We test whether not only a person's own gender, but also their partner's gender shapes hours worked. We use Dutch administrative population data on almost 5,000 persons who had both male and female partners, whose hours worked we observe monthly over 15 years. We argue that this provides a unique setting to assess the relevance of partner's gender for labor market behavior. Using two-way fixed effects and fixed-effects individual slopes models, we find that both men and women tend to work more hours when partnered with a female partner compared to a male partner. These results align with our hypothesis that a partner's gender influences labor market behavior. For women, we conclude that this finding may be (partly) explained by marital and motherhood status. Additionally, we discovered that women decrease their hours worked to a lesser extent when caring for a child if they have a female partner. Finally, we found that for men, the positive association between own and partner's hours worked is weaker when one has a female partner, indicating a higher degree of specialization within these couples.

Foraging task specialization in honey bees (Apis mellifera): the contribution of floral rewards to the learning performance of pollen and nectar foragers.

Social insects live in communities where cooperative actions heavily rely on the individual cognitive abilities of their members. In the honey bee (Apis mellifera), the specialization in nectar or pollen collection is associated with variations in gustatory sensitivity, affecting both associative and non-associative learning. Gustatory sensitivity fluctuates as a function of changes in motivation for the specific floral resource throughout the foraging cycle, yet differences in learning between nectar and pollen foragers at the onset of food collection remain unexplored. Here, we examined nectar and pollen foragers captured upon arrival at food sources. We subjected them to an olfactory proboscis extension reflex (PER) conditioning using a 10% sucrose solution paired (S10%+P) or unpaired (S10%) with pollen as a co-reinforcement. For non-associative learning, we habituated foragers with S10%+P or S10%, followed by dishabituation tests with either a 50% sucrose solution paired (S50%+P) or unpaired (S50%) with pollen. Our results indicate that pollen foragers show lower performance than nectar foragers when conditioned with S10%. Interestingly, performance improves to levels similar to those of nectar foragers when pollen is included as a rewarding stimulus (S10%+P). In non-associative learning, pollen foragers tested with S10%+P displayed a lower degree of habituation than nectar foragers and a higher degree of dishabituation when pollen was used as the dishabituating stimulus (S10%+P). Altogether, our results support the idea that pollen and nectar honey bee foragers differ in their responsiveness to rewards, leading to inter-individual differences in learning that contribute to foraging specialization.

Pheromone representation in the ant antennal lobe changes with age.

While the neural basis of age-related decline has been extensively studied,1,2,3 less is known about changes in neural function during the pre-senescent stages of adulthood. Adult neural plasticity is likely a key factor in social insect age polyethism, where individuals perform different tasks as they age and divide labor in an age-dependent manner.4,5,6,7,8,9 Primarily, workers transition from nursing to foraging tasks,5,10 become more aggressive, and more readily display alarm behavior11,12,13,14,15,16 as they get older. While it is unknown how these behavioral dynamics are neurally regulated, they could partially be generated by altered salience of behaviorally relevant stimuli.4,6,7 Here, we investigated how odor coding in the antennal lobe (AL) changes with age in the context of alarm pheromone communication in the clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi).17 Similar to other social insects,11,12,16 older ants responded more rapidly to alarm pheromones, the chemical signals for danger. Using whole-AL calcium imaging,18 we then mapped odor representations for five general odorants and two alarm pheromones in young and old ants. Alarm pheromones were represented sparsely at all ages. However, alarm pheromone responses within individual glomeruli changed with age, either increasing or decreasing. Only two glomeruli became sensitized to alarm pheromones with age, while at the same time becoming desensitized to general odorants. Our results suggest that the heightened response to alarm pheromones in older ants occurs via increased sensitivity in these two core glomeruli, illustrating the importance of sensory modulation in social insect division of labor and age-associated behavioral plasticity.

Engineering carbon source division of labor for efficient α-carotene production in Corynebacterium glutamicum.

Effective utilization of glucose, xylose, and acetate, common carbon sources in lignocellulose hydrolysate, can boost biomanufacturing economics. However, carbon leaks into biomass biosynthesis pathways instead of the intended target product remain to be optimized. This study aimed to enhance α-carotene production by optimizing glucose, xylose, and acetate utilization in a high-efficiency Corynebacterium glutamicum cell factory. Heterologous xylose pathway expression in C. glutamicum resulted in strain m4, exhibiting a two-fold increase in α-carotene production from xylose compared to glucose. Xylose utilization was found to boost the biosynthesis of pyruvate and acetyl-CoA, essential precursors for carotenoid biosynthesis. Additionally, metabolic engineering including pck, pyc, ppc, and aceE deletion, completely disrupted the metabolic connection between glycolysis and the TCA cycle, further enhancing α-carotene production. This strategic intervention directed glucose and xylose primarily towards target chemical production, while acetate supplied essential metabolites for cell growth recovery. The engineered strain C. glutamicum m8 achieved 30 mg/g α-carotene, 67% higher than strain m4. In fed-batch fermentation, strain m8 produced 1802 mg/L of α-carotene, marking the highest titer reported to date in microbial fermentation. Moreover, it exhibited excellent performance in authentic lignocellulosic hydrolysate, producing 216 mg/L α-carotene, 1.45 times higher than the initial strain (m4). These labor-division strategies significantly contribute to the development of clean processes for producing various valuable chemicals from lignocellulosic resources.

Bacterial cell differentiation enables population level survival strategies.

Clonal reproduction of unicellular organisms ensures the stable inheritance of genetic information. However, this means of reproduction lacks an intrinsic basis for genetic variation, other than spontaneous mutation and horizontal gene transfer. To make up for this lack of genetic variation, many unicellular organisms undergo the process of cell differentiation to achieve phenotypic heterogeneity within isogenic populations. Cell differentiation is either an inducible or obligate program. Induced cell differentiation can occur as a response to a stimulus, such as starvation or host cell invasion, or it can be a stochastic process. In contrast, obligate cell differentiation is hardwired into the organism's life cycle. Whether induced or obligate, bacterial cell differentiation requires the activation of a signal transduction pathway that initiates a global change in gene expression and ultimately results in a morphological change. While cell differentiation is considered a hallmark in the development of multicellular organisms, many unicellular bacteria utilize this process to implement survival strategies. In this review, we describe well-characterized cell differentiation programs to highlight three main survival strategies used by bacteria capable of differentiation: (i) environmental adaptation, (ii) division of labor, and (iii) bet-hedging.

Freshwater trematodes differ from marine trematodes in patterns connected with division of labor.

Background: Prior research suggests that trematode rediae, a developmental stage of trematode parasites that reproduce clonally within a snail host, show evidence of division of labor (DOL). Single-species infections often have two morphologically distinct groups: small rediae, the 'soldiers', are active, aggressive, and do not appear to reproduce; large rediae, the 'reproductives', are larger, sluggish, and full of offspring. Most data supporting DOL come from trematodes infecting marine snails, while data from freshwater trematodes are more limited and generally do not supported DOL. The shorter lifespan typical of freshwater snails may partially explain this difference: defending a short-lived host at the expense of reproduction likely provides few advantages. Here, we present data from sixty-one colonies spanning twenty species of freshwater trematode exploring morphological and behavioral patterns commonly reported from marine trematodes believed to have DOL. Methods: Trematode rediae were obtained from sixty-one infected snails collected in central Vermont, USA. A portion of the COI gene was sequenced to make tentative species identifications ('COI species'). Samples of rediae were photographed, observed, and measured to look for DOL-associated patterns including a bimodal size distribution, absence of embryos in small rediae, and pronounced appendages and enlarged pharynges (mouthparts) in small rediae. Additional rediae were used to compare activity levels and likelihood to attack heterospecific trematodes in large vs. small rediae. Results: Many of the tests for DOL-associated patterns showed mixed results, even among colonies of the same COI species. However, we note a few consistent patterns. First, small rediae of most colonies appeared capable of reproduction, and we saw no indication (admittedly based on a small sample size and possibly insufficient attack trial methodology) that small rediae were more active or aggressive. This differs from patterns reported from most marine trematodes. Second, the small rediae of most colonies had larger pharynges relative to their body size than large rediae, consistent with marine trematodes. We also observed that colonies of three sampled COI species appear to produce a group of large rediae that have distinctly large pharynges. Conclusions: We conclude that these freshwater species likely do not have a group of specialized non-reproductive soldiers because small rediae of at least some colonies in almost every species do appear to produce embryos. We cannot rule out the possibility that small rediae act as a temporary soldier caste. We are intrigued by the presence of rediae with enlarged pharynges in some species and propose that they may serve an adaptive role, possibly similar to the defensive role of small 'soldier' rediae of marine trematodes. Large-pharynx rediae have been documented in other species previously, and we encourage future efforts to study these large-pharynx rediae.

Prestalk-like positioning of de-differentiated cells in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum switches between solitary growth and social fruitification depending on nutrient availability. Under starvation, cells aggregate and form fruiting bodies consisting of spores and altruistic stalk cells. Once cells socially committed, they complete fruitification, even if a new source of nutrients becomes available. This social commitment is puzzling because it hinders individual cells from resuming solitary growth quickly. One idea posits that traits that facilitate premature de-commitment are hindered from being selected. We studied outcomes of the premature de-commitment through forced refeeding. Our results show that when refed cells interacted with non-refed cells, some of them became solitary, whereas a fraction was redirected to the altruistic stalk, regardless of their original fate. The refed cells exhibited reduced cohesiveness and were sorted out during morphogenesis. Our findings provide an insight into a division of labor of the social amoeba, in which less cohesive individuals become altruists.

A division-of-labor mode contributes to the cardioprotective potential of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells in heart failure post myocardial infarction.

Background: Treatment of heart failure post myocardial infarction (post-MI HF) with mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) holds great promise. Nevertheless, 2-dimensional (2D) GMP-grade MSCs from different labs and donor sources have different therapeutic efficacy and still in a low yield. Therefore, it is crucial to increase the production and find novel ways to assess the therapeutic efficacy of MSCs. Materials and methods: hUC-MSCs were cultured in 3-dimensional (3D) expansion system for obtaining enough cells for clinical use, named as 3D MSCs. A post-MI HF mouse model was employed to conduct in vivo and in vitro experiments. Single-cell and bulk RNA-seq analyses were performed on 3D MSCs. A total of 125 combination algorithms were leveraged to screen for core ligand genes. Shinyapp and shinycell workflows were used for deploying web-server. Result: 3D GMP-grade MSCs can significantly and stably reduce the extent of post-MI HF. To understand the stable potential cardioprotective mechanism, scRNA-seq revealed the heterogeneity and division-of-labor mode of 3D MSCs at the cellular level. Specifically, scissor phenotypic analysis identified a reported wound-healing CD142+ MSCs subpopulation that is also associated with cardiac protection ability and CD142- MSCs that is in proliferative state, contributing to the cardioprotective function and self-renewal, respectively. Differential expression analysis was conducted on CD142+ MSCs and CD142- MSCs and the differentially expressed ligand-related model was achieved by employing 125 combination algorithms. The present study developed a machine learning predictive model based on 13 ligands. Further analysis using CellChat demonstrated that CD142+ MSCs have a stronger secretion capacity compared to CD142- MSCs and Flow cytometry sorting of the CD142+ MSCs and qRT-PCR validation confirmed the significant upregulation of these 13 ligand factors in CD142+ MSCs. Conclusion: Clinical GMP-grade 3D MSCs could serve as a stable cardioprotective cell product. Using scissor analysis on scRNA-seq data, we have clarified the potential functional and proliferative subpopulation, which cooperatively contributed to self-renewal and functional maintenance for 3D MSCs, named as "division of labor" mode of MSCs. Moreover, a ligand model was robustly developed for predicting the secretory efficacy of MSCs. A user-friendly web-server and a predictive model were constructed and available (https://wangxc.shinyapps.io/3D_MSCs/).

Programming Dynamic Division of Labor Using Horizontal Gene Transfer.

The metabolic engineering of microbes has broad applications, including biomanufacturing, bioprocessing, and environmental remediation. The introduction of a complex, multistep pathway often imposes a substantial metabolic burden on the host cell, restraining the accumulation of productive biomass and limiting pathway efficiency. One strategy to alleviate metabolic burden is the division of labor (DOL) in which different subpopulations carry out different parts of the pathway and work together to convert a substrate into a final product. However, the maintenance of different engineered subpopulations is challenging due to competition and convoluted interstrain population dynamics. Through modeling, we show that dynamic division of labor (DDOL), which we define as the DOL between indiscrete populations capable of dynamic and reversible interchange, can overcome these limitations and enable the robust maintenance of burdensome, multistep pathways. We propose that DDOL can be mediated by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and use plasmid genomics to uncover evidence that DDOL is a strategy utilized by natural microbial communities. Our work suggests that bioengineers can harness HGT to stabilize synthetic metabolic pathways in microbial communities, enabling the development of robust engineered systems for deployment in a variety of contexts.

Becoming a parent: Trajectories of family division of labor in Germany and the United States.

The transition to parenthood represents a turning point shaping couples' arrangements for paid work and housework. Previous studies often examined these changes in isolation, rather than as interrelated trajectories reflecting diverse models of family division of labor. Drawing on data from different-sex couples from the 1984-2019 Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the 1984-2020 German Socio-Economic Panel, this study uses multichannel sequence analysis to identify four and three patterned constellations of family division of labor in the United States and Germany, respectively. These constellations differ in women's and men's respective contributions to household earnings and their relative participation in housework, spanning from one year before to ten years after the birth of a first child. National differences are found in the identified constellations, their prevalence, and the role of couples' conjoint education in shaping these constellations. In both countries, couples in which the husband has an educational advantage are most likely to transition to a traditional arrangement. However, only in the U.S. do couples with both partners holding a college degree also tend to enter a traditional arrangement. Furthermore, among U.S. couples in which the wife has an educational advantage, they are most likely to adopt a partly egalitarian arrangement (equal earnings but not housework) upon becoming parents.

The Budding Neuroscience of Ant Social Behavior.

Ant physiology has been fashioned by 100 million years of social evolution. Ants perform many sophisticated social and collective behaviors yet possess nervous systems similar in schematic and scale to that of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a popular solitary model organism. Ants are thus attractive complementary subjects to investigate adaptations pertaining to complex social behaviors that are absent in flies. Despite research interest in ant behavior and the neurobiological foundations of sociality more broadly, our understanding of the ant nervous system is incomplete. Recent technical advances have enabled cutting-edge investigations of the nervous system in a fashion that is less dependent on model choice, opening the door for mechanistic social insect neuroscience. In this review, we revisit important aspects of what is known about the ant nervous system and behavior, and we look forward to how functional circuit neuroscience in ants will help us understand what distinguishes solitary animals from highly social ones.

Neural mechanisms distinguishing two types of cooperative problem-solving approaches: An fNIRS hyperscanning study.

Collaborative cooperation (CC) and division of labor cooperation (DLC) are two prevalent forms of cooperative problem-solving approaches in daily life. Despite extensive research on the neural mechanisms underlying cooperative problem-solving approaches, a notable gap exists between the neural processes that support CC and DLC. The present study utilized a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning technique along with a classic cooperative tangram puzzle task to investigate the neural mechanisms engaged by both friends and stranger dyads during CC versus DLC. The key findings of this study were as follows: (1) Dyads exhibited superior behavioral performance in the DLC task than in the CC task. The CC task bolstered intra-brain functional connectivity and inter-brain synchrony (IBS) in regions linked to the mirror neuron system (MNS), spatial perception (SP) and cognitive control. (2) Friend dyads showed stronger IBS in brain regions associated with the MNS than stranger dyads. (3) Perspective-taking predicted not only dyads' behavioral performance in the CC task but also their IBS in brain regions associated with SP during the DLC task. Taken together, these findings elucidate the divergent behavioral performance and neural connection patterns between the two cooperative problem-solving approaches. This study provides novel insights into the various neurocognitive processes underlying flexible coordination strategies in real-world cooperative contexts.