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Chen L, Tan S, Li C, Lin Z, Hu X, Gu T, Liu J, Guo X, Qu Z, Gao X, Wang Y, Li W, Li Z, Yang J, Li W, Hu Z, Li J, Huang Y, Chen J, Liu D, Xie H, Yuan B. Intersubject Dynamic Conditional Correlation: A Novel Method to Track the Framewise Network Implication during Naturalistic Stimuli. Brain Connect 2024. [PMID: 39302037 DOI: 10.1089/brain.2023.0075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Background: Naturalistic stimuli have become increasingly popular in modern cognitive neuroscience. These stimuli have high ecological validity due to their rich and multilayered features. However, their complexity also presents methodological challenges for uncovering neural network reconfiguration. Dynamic functional connectivity using the sliding-window technique is commonly used but has several limitations. In this study, we introduce a new method called intersubject dynamic conditional correlation (ISDCC). Method: ISDCC uses intersubject analysis to remove intrinsic and non-neuronal signals, retaining only intersubject-consistent stimuli-induced signals. It then applies dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) based on the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity to calculate the framewise functional connectivity. To validate ISDCC, we analyzed simulation data with known network reconfiguration patterns and two publicly available narrative functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) datasets. Results: (1) ISDCC accurately unveiled the underlying network reconfiguration patterns in simulation data, demonstrating greater sensitivity than DCC; (2) ISDCC identified synchronized network reconfiguration patterns across listeners; (3) ISDCC effectively differentiated between stimulus types with varying temporal coherence; and (4) network reconfigurations unveiled by ISDCC were significantly correlated with listener engagement during narrative comprehension. Conclusion: ISDCC is a precise and dynamic method for tracking network implications in response to naturalistic stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lifeng Chen
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Shiyao Tan
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Chaoqun Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zonghui Lin
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xin Hu
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Tianyi Gu
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jiaxuan Liu
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xiaolin Guo
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhiheng Qu
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xiaowei Gao
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yaling Wang
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wanchun Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhongqi Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Junjie Yang
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wanjing Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhe Hu
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Junjing Li
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yien Huang
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jiali Chen
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Dongqiang Liu
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
- Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Dalian, China
| | - Hui Xie
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
- Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Binke Yuan
- Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
- Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China
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2
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Meliss S, Pascua-Martin C, Skipper JI, Murayama K. The magic, memory, and curiosity fMRI dataset of people viewing magic tricks. Sci Data 2024; 11:1063. [PMID: 39353978 PMCID: PMC11445505 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-024-03675-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2022] [Accepted: 07/23/2024] [Indexed: 10/03/2024] Open
Abstract
Videos of magic tricks offer lots of opportunities to study the human mind. They violate the expectations of the viewer, causing prediction errors, misdirect attention, and elicit epistemic emotions. Herein we describe and share the Magic, Memory, and Curiosity (MMC) Dataset where 50 participants watched 36 magic tricks filmed and edited specifically for functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) experiments. The MMC Dataset includes a contextual incentive manipulation, curiosity ratings for the magic tricks, and incidental memory performance tested a week later. We additionally measured individual differences in working memory and constructs relevant to motivated learning. fMRI data were acquired before, during, and after learning. We show that both behavioural and fMRI data are of high quality, as indicated by basic validation analysis, i.e., variance decomposition as well as intersubject correlation and seed-based functional connectivity, respectively. The richness and complexity of the MMC Dataset will allow researchers to explore dynamic cognitive and motivational processes from various angles during task and rest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefanie Meliss
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | | | - Kou Murayama
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
- Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
- Research Institute, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan.
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3
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Levy J, Kluge A, Hameiri B, Lankinen K, Bar-Tal D, Halperin E. The paradoxical brain: paradoxes impact conflict perspectives through increased neural alignment. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae353. [PMID: 39344195 PMCID: PMC11439920 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae353] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2024] [Revised: 08/06/2024] [Accepted: 08/20/2024] [Indexed: 10/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Mental perspectives can sometimes be changed by psychological interventions. For instance, when applied in the context of intergroup conflicts, interventions, such as the paradoxical thinking intervention, may unfreeze ingrained negative outgroup attitudes and thereby promote progress toward peacemaking. Yet, at present, the evaluation of interventions' impact relies almost exclusively on self-reported and behavioral measures that are informative, but are also prone to social desirability and self-presentational biases. In the present study, magnetoencephalography tracked neural alignment, before and after the paradoxical thinking intervention, during the processing of auditory narratives over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and thereby evaluated the intervention's potential to change individuals' (n = 80) mental perspectives over the conflict. Compared to baseline, the conflict-targeted intervention yielded a specific significant increased neural alignment in the posterior superior temporal sulcus while processing incongruent as well as congruent political narratives of the conflict. This may be interpreted as a possible change in perspective over the conflict. The results and their interpretations are discussed in view of the critical added value of neuroimaging when assessing interventions to potentially reveal changes in mental perspectives or the way in which they are processed, even in contexts of entrenched resistance to reconsider one's ideological stance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan Levy
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Rakentajanaukio 2 C, 02150 Espoo, Finland
- Department of Criminology and Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Max and Anna Webb, 5290002 Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Annika Kluge
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Rakentajanaukio 2 C, 02150 Espoo, Finland
| | - Boaz Hameiri
- The Evens Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, Tel Aviv University, Chaim Levanon St 55, 6997801 Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
| | - Kaisu Lankinen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, United States
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - Daniel Bar-Tal
- School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Chaim Levanon St 55, 6997801 Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
| | - Eran Halperin
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel
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4
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Pinto J, Comprido C, Moreira V, Maccarone MT, Cogoni C, Faustino R, Pignatelli D, Cera N. The Complex Role Played by the Default Mode Network during Sexual Stimulation: A Cluster-Based fMRI Meta-Analysis. Behav Sci (Basel) 2024; 14:570. [PMID: 39062393 PMCID: PMC11273531 DOI: 10.3390/bs14070570] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2024] [Revised: 06/14/2024] [Accepted: 07/02/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024] Open
Abstract
The default mode network (DMN) is a complex network that plays a significant and active role during naturalistic stimulation. Previous studies that have used naturalistic stimuli, such as real-life stories or silent or sonorous films, have found that the information processing involved a complex hierarchical set of brain regions, including the DMN nodes. The DMN is not involved in low-level features and is only associated with high-level content-related incoming information. The human sexual experience involves a complex set of processes related to both external context and inner processes. Since the DMN plays an active role in the integration of naturalistic stimuli and aesthetic perception with beliefs, thoughts, and episodic autobiographical memories, we aimed at quantifying the involvement of the nodes of the DMN during visual sexual stimulation. After a systematic search in the principal electronic databases, we selected 83 fMRI studies, and an ALE meta-analysis was calculated. We performed conjunction analyses to assess differences in the DMN related to stimulus modalities, sex differences, and sexual orientation. The results show that sexual stimulation alters the topography of the DMN and highlights the DMN's active role in the integration of sexual stimuli with sexual schemas and beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana Pinto
- Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal (C.C.)
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal
| | - Camila Comprido
- Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal (C.C.)
| | - Vanessa Moreira
- Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal (C.C.)
| | | | - Carlotta Cogoni
- Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal;
| | - Ricardo Faustino
- Research Unit in Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy, Cross I&D Lisbon Research Center, Escola Superior de Saúde da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa, 1300-125 Lisbon, Portugal;
| | - Duarte Pignatelli
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal
- Department of Endocrinology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário de São João, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal
| | - Nicoletta Cera
- Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal (C.C.)
- Research Unit in Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy, Cross I&D Lisbon Research Center, Escola Superior de Saúde da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa, 1300-125 Lisbon, Portugal;
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5
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Wang LS, Chang YC, Liou S, Weng MH, Chen DY, Kung CC. When "more for others, less for self" leads to co-benefits: A tri-MRI dyad-hyperscanning study. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14560. [PMID: 38469655 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14560] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2023] [Revised: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/13/2024]
Abstract
Unselfishness is admired, especially when collaborations between groups of various scales are urgently needed. However, its neural mechanisms remain elusive. In a tri-MRI dyad-hyperscanning experiment involving 26 groups, each containing 4 participants as two rotating pairs in a coordination game, we sought to achieve reciprocity, or "winning in turn by the two interacting players," as the precursor to unselfishness. Due to its critical role in social processing, the right temporal-parietal junction (rTPJ) was the seed for both time domain (connectivity) and frequency domain (i.e., coherence) analyses. For the former, negative connectivity between the rTPJ and the mentalizing network areas (e.g., the right inferior parietal lobule, rIPL) was identified, and such connectivity was further negatively correlated with the individual's final gain, supporting our task design that "rewarded" the reciprocal participants. For the latter, cerebral coherences of the rTPJs emerged between the interacting pairs (i.e., within-group interacting pairs), and the coupling between the rTPJ and the right superior temporal gyrus (rSTG) between the players who were not interacting with each other (i.e., within-group noninteracting pairs). These coherences reinforce the hypotheses that the rTPJ-rTPJ coupling tracks the collaboration processes and the rTPJ-rSTG coupling for the emergence of decontextualized shared meaning. Our results underpin two social roles (inferring others' behavior and interpreting social outcomes) subserved by the rTPJ-related network and highlight its interaction with other-self/other-concerning brain areas in reaching co-benefits among unselfish players.
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Affiliation(s)
- Le-Si Wang
- Institute of Creative Industries Design, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Yi-Cing Chang
- Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Shyhnan Liou
- Institute of Creative Industries Design, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Ming-Hung Weng
- Department of Economics, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Der-Yow Chen
- Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
- Mind Research and Imaging Center (MRIC), Tainan, Taiwan
| | - Chun-Chia Kung
- Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan
- Mind Research and Imaging Center (MRIC), Tainan, Taiwan
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6
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Moffat R, Roos L, Casale C, Cross ES. Dyadic body competence predicts movement synchrony during the mirror game. Front Hum Neurosci 2024; 18:1401494. [PMID: 38962145 PMCID: PMC11220161 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1401494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2024] [Accepted: 06/07/2024] [Indexed: 07/05/2024] Open
Abstract
The process of synchronizing our body movements with others is known to enhance rapport, affect, and prosociality. Furthermore, emerging evidence suggests that synchronizing activities may enhance cognitive performance. Unknown, by contrast, is the extent to which people's individual traits and experiences influence their ability to achieve and maintain movement synchrony with another person, which is key for unlocking the social and affective benefits of movement synchrony. Here, we take a dyad-centered approach to gain a deeper understanding of the role of embodiment in achieving and maintaining movement synchrony. Using existing data, we explored the relationship between body competence and body perception scores at the level of the dyad, and the dyad's movement synchrony and complexity while playing a 2.5-min movement mirroring game. The data revealed that dyadic body competence scores positively correlate with movement synchrony, but not complexity, and that dyadic body perception scores are not associated with movement synchrony or complexity. Movement synchrony was greater when the more experienced member of the dyad was responsible for copying movements. Finally, movement synchrony and complexity were stable across the duration of the mirror game. These findings show that movement synchrony is sensitive to the composition of the dyad involved, specifically the dyad's embodiment, illuminating the value of dyadic approaches to understanding body movements in social contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ryssa Moffat
- Professorship for Social Brain Sciences, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Leonie Roos
- Institute of Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Courtney Casale
- School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Emily S. Cross
- Professorship for Social Brain Sciences, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
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7
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Kluge A, Somila N, Lankinen K, Levy J. Neural alignment during outgroup intervention predicts future change of affect towards outgroup. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae125. [PMID: 38566512 PMCID: PMC10988024 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2024] [Revised: 03/08/2024] [Accepted: 03/09/2024] [Indexed: 04/04/2024] Open
Abstract
While social psychology studies have shown that paradoxical thinking intervention has a moderating effect on negative attitudes toward members from rival social groups (i.e. outgroup), the neural underpinnings of the intervention have not been studied. Here, we investigate this by examining neural alignment across individuals at different phases during the intervention regarding Covid-19 vaccine-supporters' attitudes against vaccine-opposers. We raise two questions: Whether neural alignment varies during the intervention, and whether it predicts a change in outgroup attitudes measured via a survey 2 days after the intervention and compared to baseline. We test the neural alignment using magnetoencephalography-recorded neural oscillations and multiset canonical correlation analysis. We find a build-up of neural alignment which emerges at the final phase of the paradoxical thinking intervention in the precuneus-a hub of mentalizing; there was no such effect in the control conditions. In parallel, we find a behavioral build-up of dissent to the interventional stimuli. These neural and behavioral patterns predict a prosocial future change in affect and actions toward the outgroup. Together, these findings reveal a new operational pattern of mentalizing on the outgroup, which can change the way individuals may feel and behave toward members of that outgroup.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Kluge
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo 02150, Finland
| | - Niko Somila
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo 02150, Finland
| | - Kaisu Lankinen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Jonathan Levy
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo 02150, Finland
- Department of Criminology and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
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8
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Lin D, Zhu T, Wang Y. Emotion contagion and physiological synchrony: The more intimate relationships, the more contagion of positive emotions. Physiol Behav 2024; 275:114434. [PMID: 38092069 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114434] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Revised: 12/09/2023] [Accepted: 12/10/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
The study aimed to explore how interpersonal closeness (friends vs. strangers) and emotion type (positive vs. negative) influenced emotion contagion and physiological synchrony between interacting partners. Twenty-eight friend dyads (n = 56) and 29 stranger dyads (n = 58) participated in an emotion contagion laboratory task. In each dyad, one participant, the 'sender', was randomly asked to watch a film clip (neutral, positive, or negative), while their partner, the 'observer' passively observed the sender's facial expressions. Participants' electrocardiograms (ECG) and facial electromyography (EMG) signals were recorded using the BIOPAC system. Results revealed that observing the sender's facial expressions led to the observer's spontaneous mimicry and emotional contagion, accompanied by enhanced physiological synchrony between interacting partners. In the positive emotion condition, the observers reported more positive emotions and displayed stronger zygomaticus major activity in friend dyads than in stranger dyads. Greater physiological synchrony (heart rate and heart rate variability) between interacting partners was also observed in friend dyads than in stranger dyads in the positive emotion condition. These results indicate that positive emotion contagion is more likely to occur between close partners than negative emotion contagion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daichun Lin
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Tongtong Zhu
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Yanmei Wang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China.
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9
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Xie S, Liu J, Hu Y, Liu W, Ma C, Jin S, Zhang L, Kang Y, Ding Y, Zhang X, Hu Z, Cheng W, Yang Z. A normative model of brain responses to social scenarios reflects the maturity of children and adolescents' social-emotional abilities. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2023; 18:nsad062. [PMID: 37930841 PMCID: PMC10649363 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsad062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Revised: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 11/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The rapid brain maturation in childhood and adolescence accompanies the development of socio-emotional functioning. However, it is unclear how the maturation of the neural activity drives the development of socio-emotional functioning and individual differences. This study aimed to reflect the age dependence of inter-individual differences in brain responses to socio-emotional scenarios and to develop naturalistic imaging indicators to assess the maturity of socio-emotional ability at the individual level. Using three independent naturalistic imaging datasets containing healthy participants (n = 111, 21 and 122), we found and validated that age-modulated inter-individual concordance of brain responses to socio-emotional movies in specific brain regions. The similarity of an individual's brain response to the average response of older participants was defined as response typicality, which predicted an individual's emotion regulation strategies in adolescence and theory of mind (ToM) in childhood. Its predictive power was not superseded by age, sex, cognitive performance or executive function. We further showed that the movie's valence and arousal ratings grounded the response typicality. The findings highlight that forming typical brain response patterns may be a neural phenotype underlying the maturation of socio-emotional ability. The proposed response typicality represents a neuroimaging approach to measure individuals' maturity of cognitive reappraisal and ToM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuqi Xie
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Jingjing Liu
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Yang Hu
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Wenjing Liu
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 201108, China
| | - Changminghao Ma
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 201108, China
| | - Shuyu Jin
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Lei Zhang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Yinzhi Kang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Yue Ding
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Xiaochen Zhang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Zhishan Hu
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
| | - Wenhong Cheng
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 201108, China
- Department of Psychological Medicine, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
| | - Zhi Yang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
- Institute of Psychological and Behavioral Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & National Center for Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100035, China
- Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100054, China
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10
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Tikka P, Kaipainen M, Salmi J. Narrative simulation of social experiences in naturalistic context - A neurocinematic approach. Neuropsychologia 2023; 188:108654. [PMID: 37507066 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2022] [Revised: 07/02/2023] [Accepted: 07/25/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023]
Abstract
Narratives may be regarded as simulations of everyday social situations. They are key to studying the human mind in socio-culturally determined contexts as they allow anchoring to the common ground of embodied and environmentally-engaged cognition. Here we review recent findings from naturalistic neuroscience on neural functions in conditions that mimic lifelike situations. We will focus particularly on neurocinematics, a research field that applies mediated narratives as stimuli for neuroimaging experiments. During the last two decades, this paradigm has contributed to an accumulation of insights about the neural underpinnings of behavior and sense-making in various narratively contextualized situations particularly pertaining to socio-emotional encounters. One of the key questions in neurocinematics is, how do intersubjectively synchronized brain activations relate to subjective experiences? Another question we address is how to bring natural contexts into experimental studies. Seeking to respond to both questions, we suggest neurocinematic studies to examine three manifestations of the same phenomenon side-by-side: subjective experiences of narrative situations, unfolding of narrative stimulus structure, and neural processes that co-constitute the experience. This approach facilitates identifying experientially meaningful activity patterns in the brain and points out what they may mean in relation to shared and communicable contents. Via rich-featured and temporally contextualized narrative stimuli, neurocinematics attempts to contribute to emerging holistic theories of neural dynamics and connectomics explaining typical and atypical interindividual variability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pia Tikka
- Enactive Virtuality Lab, Baltic School of Film, Media and Arts, Tallinn University, Estonia.
| | | | - Juha Salmi
- Translational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
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11
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Wu X, Wang X, Lu XJ, Kong YZ, Hu L. Enhanced neural synchrony associated with long-term ballroom dance training. Neuroimage 2023; 278:120301. [PMID: 37524169 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2023] [Revised: 07/25/2023] [Accepted: 07/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Long-term dance training offers numerous benefits, including improvements in physical health, posture, body coordination, and mental health and well-being. Since dance is an art form of body-to-body communication, professional dancers may share feelings and thoughts on dance with their partners, owing to their shared training experiences. Considering this perspective, one may expect that professional dancers would demonstrate pronounced neural similarities when viewing dancing videos, which could be associated with their training duration. To test these hypotheses, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while presenting ballroom dancing and neutral video clips with long durations (∼100 s each) to 41 professional ballroom dancers (19 pairs of dance partners) and 39 age- and sex-matched nondancers. Our findings revealed that dancers exhibited broader and stronger neural similarities across the whole brain when watching dancing video clips, as compared to the control group. These increased neural similarities could be interpreted in at least two distinct ways. First, neural similarities in certain brain regions within the motor control circuit (i.e., frontal cortical-basal ganglia-thalamic circuit) were significantly correlated with dance-related information (e.g., dance partners' cooperation duration), which reinforced the impact of long-term dance training on neural synchronization. Second, neural similarities in other brain regions (e.g., memory-related brain regions) were significantly correlated with subjects' impression of the viewed videos (i.e., whether they have watched before, familiarity, and liking), which may not necessarily be directly linked to long-term dance training. Altogether, our study provided solid evidence for synchronized neural mechanisms in professional dancers due to long-term dance training.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao Wu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Xiao Wang
- School of Art, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Xue-Jing Lu
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Ya-Zhuo Kong
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
| | - Li Hu
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
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12
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Mizrahi T, Axelrod V. Naturalistic auditory stimuli with fNIRS prefrontal cortex imaging: A potential paradigm for disorder of consciousness diagnostics (a study with healthy participants). Neuropsychologia 2023; 187:108604. [PMID: 37271305 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108604] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2023] [Revised: 06/01/2023] [Accepted: 06/02/2023] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Disorder of consciousness (DOC) is a devastating condition due to brain damage. A patient in this condition is non-responsive, but nevertheless might be conscious at least at some level. Determining the conscious level of DOC patients is important for both medical and ethical reasons, but reliably achieving this has been a major challenge. Naturalistic stimuli in combination with neuroimaging have been proposed as a promising approach for DOC patient diagnosis. Capitalizing on and extending this proposal, the goal of the present study conducted with healthy participants was to develop a new paradigm with naturalistic auditory stimuli and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) - an approach that can be used at the bedside. Twenty-four healthy participants passively listened to 9 min of auditory story, scrambled auditory story, classical music, and scrambled classical music segments while their prefrontal cortex activity was recorded using fNIRS. We found much higher intersubject correlation (ISC) during story compared to scrambled story conditions both at the group level and in the majority of individual subjects, suggesting that fNIRS imaging of the prefrontal cortex might be a sensitive method to capture neural changes associated with narrative comprehension. In contrast, the ISC during the classical music segment did not differ reliably from scrambled classical music and was also much lower than the story condition. Our main result is that naturalistic auditory stories with fNIRS might be used in a clinical setup to identify high-level processing and potential consciousness in DOC patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamar Mizrahi
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel; Head Injuries Rehabilitation Department, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Vadim Axelrod
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
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13
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Hudson M, Santavirta S, Putkinen V, Seppälä K, Sun L, Karjalainen T, Karlsson HK, Hirvonen J, Nummenmaa L. Neural responses to biological motion distinguish autistic and schizotypal traits. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2023; 18:nsad011. [PMID: 36847146 PMCID: PMC10032360 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsad011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2022] [Revised: 01/26/2023] [Accepted: 02/24/2023] [Indexed: 03/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Difficulties in social interactions characterize both autism and schizophrenia and are correlated in the neurotypical population. It is unknown whether this represents a shared etiology or superficial phenotypic overlap. Both conditions exhibit atypical neural activity in response to the perception of social stimuli and decreased neural synchronization between individuals. This study investigated if neural activity and neural synchronization associated with biological motion perception are differentially associated with autistic and schizotypal traits in the neurotypical population. Participants viewed naturalistic social interactions while hemodynamic brain activity was measured with fMRI, which was modeled against a continuous measure of the extent of biological motion. General linear model analysis revealed that biological motion perception was associated with neural activity across the action observation network. However, intersubject phase synchronization analysis revealed neural activity to be synchronized between individuals in occipital and parietal areas but desynchronized in temporal and frontal regions. Autistic traits were associated with decreased neural activity (precuneus and middle cingulate gyrus), and schizotypal traits were associated with decreased neural synchronization (middle and inferior frontal gyri). Biological motion perception elicits divergent patterns of neural activity and synchronization, which dissociate autistic and schizotypal traits in the general population, suggesting that they originate from different neural mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew Hudson
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
- School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
- Brain Research & Imaging Centre, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, Research Way, Plymouth PL6 8BU, UK
| | - Severi Santavirta
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
| | - Vesa Putkinen
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
| | - Kerttu Seppälä
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
- Department of Medical Physics, Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
| | - Lihua Sun
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China
| | - Tomi Karjalainen
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
| | - Henry K Karlsson
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
| | - Jussi Hirvonen
- Department of Radiology, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku 20520, Finland
- Medical Imaging Centre, Department of Radiology, Tampere University and Tampere University Hospital, Tampere 33100, Finland
| | - Lauri Nummenmaa
- Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
- Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku 20520, Finland
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14
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Abstract
This introduction aims to set out the potential as well as some of the pitfalls of the newly emerging area of the Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment (SoNeAt). To organize and interconnect the burgeoning empirical studies in this line of research, including those in this special issue, we outline a programmatic framework including an extension of our conceptual proposals NAMA and NAMDA to guide future research. We hope that this special issue will act as a stimulus for redoubling our efforts advancing the newly emerging SoNeAt area bridging attachment theory and social neuroscience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lars White
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Melanie Kungl
- Department of Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
| | - Pascal Vrticka
- Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
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15
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Broom TW, Stahl JL, Ping EEC, Wagner DD. They Saw a Debate: Political Polarization Is Associated with Greater Multivariate Neural Synchrony When Viewing the Opposing Candidate Speak. J Cogn Neurosci 2022; 35:60-73. [PMID: 35802592 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01888] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
With rampant polarization in current U.S. politics, it seems as though political partisans with opposing viewpoints are living in parallel realities. Indeed, prior research shows that people's impressions/attitudes toward political candidates are intertwined with their political affiliation. The current study investigated the relationship between political affiliation and intersubject neural synchrony of multivariate patterns of activity during naturalistic viewing of a presidential debate. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 20 individuals varying in political affiliation underwent functional neuroimaging while watching the first debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Pairs of participants with more polarized political affiliations were higher in neural synchrony in a system of brain regions involved in self-referential processing when viewing the opposing candidate speak compared with that candidate's supporters regardless of which extreme of the political spectrum they occupied. Moreover, pairs of political partisans matching in the candidate they supported were higher in neural synchrony when watching the candidate they opposed compared with the one they both supported. These findings suggest that political groups' shared understanding may be driven more by perceptions of outgroups than of their own party/candidates.
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16
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Somech N, Mizrahi T, Caspi Y, Axelrod V. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy imaging of the prefrontal cortex during a naturalistic comedy movie. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:913540. [PMID: 36161175 PMCID: PMC9493198 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.913540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Naturalistic stimulation (i.e., movies and auditory narratives of some minutes' length) has been a powerful approach to bringing more real-life experiences into laboratory experiments. Data-driven, intersubject correlation (ISC) analysis permits examining to what extent activity in a specific brain region correlates across participants during exposure to a naturalistic stimulus, as well as testing whether neural activity correlates with behavioral measures. Notably, most of the previous research with naturalistic stimuli was conducted using functional fMRI (fMRI). Here, we tested whether a naturalistic approach and the ISC are feasible using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) - the imaging method particularly suited for populations of patients and children. Fifty-three healthy adult participants watched twice a 3-min segment of a Charlie Chaplin movie while we recorded the brain activity on the surface of their prefrontal cortex using fNIRS. In addition, an independent group of 18 participants used a continuous scoring procedure to rate the extent to which they felt that different parts of the movie fragment were funny. Our two findings were as follows. First, we found higher-than-zero ISC in fNIRS signals in the prefrontal cortex lobes, a result that was particularly high in the oxygenated channels during the first repetition of the movie. Second, we found a significant negative correlation between oxygenated brain signals and ratings of the movie's humorousness. In a series of control analyses we demonstrated that this latter correlation could not be explained by various non-humor-related movie sensory properties (e.g., auditory volume and image brightness). The key overall outcome of the present study is that fNIRS in combination with the naturalistic paradigms and the ISC might be a sensitive and powerful research method to explore cognitive processing. Our results also suggest a potential role of the prefrontal cortex in humor appreciation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Noam Somech
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Tamar Mizrahi
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
- Head Injuries Rehabilitation Department, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Yael Caspi
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Vadim Axelrod
- The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
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17
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Gugnowska K, Novembre G, Kohler N, Villringer A, Keller PE, Sammler D. Endogenous sources of interbrain synchrony in duetting pianists. Cereb Cortex 2022; 32:4110-4127. [PMID: 35029645 PMCID: PMC9476614 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2021] [Revised: 11/16/2021] [Accepted: 11/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
When people interact with each other, their brains synchronize. However, it remains unclear whether interbrain synchrony (IBS) is functionally relevant for social interaction or stems from exposure of individual brains to identical sensorimotor information. To disentangle these views, the current dual-EEG study investigated amplitude-based IBS in pianists jointly performing duets containing a silent pause followed by a tempo change. First, we manipulated the similarity of the anticipated tempo change and measured IBS during the pause, hence, capturing the alignment of purely endogenous, temporal plans without sound or movement. Notably, right posterior gamma IBS was higher when partners planned similar tempi, it predicted whether partners' tempi matched after the pause, and it was modulated only in real, not in surrogate pairs. Second, we manipulated the familiarity with the partner's actions and measured IBS during joint performance with sound. Although sensorimotor information was similar across conditions, gamma IBS was higher when partners were unfamiliar with each other's part and had to attend more closely to the sound of the performance. These combined findings demonstrate that IBS is not merely an epiphenomenon of shared sensorimotor information but can also hinge on endogenous, cognitive processes crucial for behavioral synchrony and successful social interaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Gugnowska
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
- Research Group Neurocognition of Music and Language, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany
| | - Giacomo Novembre
- Neuroscience of Perception and Action Lab, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rome 00161, Italy
| | - Natalie Kohler
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
- Research Group Neurocognition of Music and Language, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany
| | - Arno Villringer
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
| | - Peter E Keller
- Department of Clinical Medicine, Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Aarhus 8000, Denmark
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW 2751, Australia
| | - Daniela Sammler
- Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
- Research Group Neurocognition of Music and Language, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany
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18
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Xie H, Redcay E. A tale of two connectivities: intra- and inter-subject functional connectivity jointly enable better prediction of social abilities. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:875828. [PMID: 36117636 PMCID: PMC9475068 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.875828] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Accepted: 08/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Naturalistic functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms, such as movie viewing, are attracting increased attention, given their ability to mimic the real-world cognitive demands on attention and multimodal sensory integration. Moreover, naturalistic paradigms allow for characterizing brain network responses associated with dynamic social cognition in a model-free manner using inter-subject functional connectivity (ISFC). While intra-subject functional connectivity (FC) characterizes the individual’s brain functional architecture, ISFC characterizes the neural coupling driven by time-locked extrinsic dynamic stimuli across individuals. Here, we hypothesized that ISFC and FC provide distinct and complementary information about individual differences in social cognition. To test this hypothesis, we examined a public movie-viewing fMRI dataset with 32 healthy adults and 90 typically developing children. Building three partial least squares regression (PLS) models to predict social abilities using FC and/or ISFC, we compared predictive performance to determine whether combining two connectivity measures could improve the prediction accuracy of individuals’ social-cognitive abilities measured by a Theory of Mind (ToM) assessment. Our results indicated that the joint model (ISFC + FC) yielded the highest predictive accuracy and significantly predicted individuals’ social cognitive abilities (rho = 0.34, p < 0.001). We also confirmed that the improved accuracy was not due to the increased feature dimensionality. In conclusion, we demonstrated that intra-/inter-subject connectivity encodes unique information about social abilities, and a joint investigation could help us gain a more complete understanding of the complex processes supporting social cognition.
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19
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Li X, Lou W, Zhang W, Tong RKY, Hu L, Peng W. Ongoing first-hand pain facilitates somatosensory resonance but inhibits affective sharing in empathy for pain. Neuroimage 2022; 263:119599. [PMID: 36049698 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2022] [Revised: 08/05/2022] [Accepted: 08/28/2022] [Indexed: 10/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Alterations of empathy for others' pain among patients with chronic pain remained inconsistent. Here, applying a capsaicin-based ongoing pain model on healthy participants, this study investigated how ongoing first-hand pain influences empathic reactions to vicarious pain stimuli. Healthy participants were randomly treated with topical capsaicin cream (capsaicin group) or hand cream (control group) on the left forearm. Video clips showing limbs in painful and non-painful situations were used to induce empathic responses. The capsaicin group showed greater empathic neural responses in the right primary somatosensory cortex (S1) than the control group but smaller responses in the left anterior insula (AI) accompanied with smaller empathic pain-intensity ratings. Notably, the intensity of ongoing pain negatively correlated with empathy-related neural responses in the left AI. Inter-subject phase synchronization analysis was used to assess stimulus-dependent dynamic functional connectivity within or between brain regions engaged in pain empathy. The capsaicin group showed greater empathy-related neural synchronization within S1 and between S1 and AI, but less synchronization within AI and between AI and MCC. Behaviorally, the differential inter-subject pain-intensity rating alignment between painful and non-painful videos was more positive for the capsaicin group than for the control group, and this effect was partially mediated by the inter-subject neural synchronization between S1 and AI. These results suggest that ongoing first-hand pain facilitates neural activation and synchronization within brain regions associated with empathy-related somatosensory resonance at the cost of inhibiting activation and synchronization within brain regions engaged in empathy-related affective sharing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoyun Li
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Wutao Lou
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Wenyun Zhang
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - Raymond Kai-Yu Tong
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Li Hu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Weiwei Peng
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
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20
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Wang R, Yu R, Tian Y, Wu H. Individual variation in the neurophysiological representation of negative emotions in virtual reality is shaped by sociability. Neuroimage 2022; 263:119596. [PMID: 36041644 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2022] [Revised: 08/24/2022] [Accepted: 08/26/2022] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Negative emotions play a dominant role in daily human life, and mentalizing and empathy are also basic sociability in social life. However, little is known regards the neurophysiological pattern of negative experiences in immersive environments and how people with different sociabilities respond to the negative emotional stimuli at behavioral and neural levels. The present study investigated the neurophysiological representation of negative affective experiences and whether such variations are associated with one's sociability. To address this question, we examined four types of negative emotions that frequently occurred in real life: angry, anxious, fearful, and helpless. We combined naturalistic neuroimaging under virtual reality, multimodal neurophysiological recording, and behavioral measures. Inter-subject representational similarity analysis was conducted to capture the individual differences in the neurophysiological representations of negative emotional experiences. The behavioral and neurophysiological indices revealed that although the emotion ratings were uniquely different, a similar electroencephalography response pattern across these negative emotions was found over the parieto-occipital electrodes. Furthermore, the neurophysiological representations indeed reflected interpersonal variations regarding mentalizing and empathic abilities. Our findings yielded a common pattern of neurophysiological responses toward different negative affective experiences in VR. Moreover, the current results indicate the potential of taking a sociability perspective for understanding the interpersonal variations in the neurophysiological representation of emotion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruien Wang
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Runquan Yu
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Yan Tian
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - Haiyan Wu
- Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
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21
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In-degree centrality in a social network is linked to coordinated neural activity. Nat Commun 2022; 13:1118. [PMID: 35236835 PMCID: PMC8891270 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28432-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2021] [Accepted: 01/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Convergent processing of the world may be a factor that contributes to social connectedness. We use neuroimaging and network analysis to investigate the association between the social-network position (as measured by in-degree centrality) of first-year university students and their neural similarity while watching naturalistic audio-visual stimuli (specifically, videos). There were 119 students in the social-network study; 63 of them participated in the neuroimaging study. We show that more central individuals had similar neural responses to their peers and to each other in brain regions that are associated with high-level interpretations and social cognition (e.g., in the default mode network), whereas less-central individuals exhibited more variable responses. Self-reported enjoyment of and interest in stimuli followed a similar pattern, but accounting for these data did not change our main results. These findings show that neural processing of external stimuli is similar in highly-central individuals but is idiosyncratic in less-central individuals. Convergent processing of external stimuli may contribute to social connectedness. Here the authors show that people with high in-degree centrality in a social network have similar neural responses to their peers and to each other and that less-central individuals have idiosyncratic responses.
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22
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Lende DH, Casper BI, Hoyt KB, Collura GL. Elements of Neuroanthropology. Front Psychol 2021; 12:509611. [PMID: 34712160 PMCID: PMC8545903 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.509611] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2019] [Accepted: 07/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Neuroanthropology is the integration of neuroscience into anthropology and aims to understand “brains in the wild.” This interdisciplinary field examines patterns of human variation in field settings and provides empirical research that complements work done in clinical and laboratory settings. Neuroanthropology often uses ethnography in combination with theories and methods from cognitive science as a way to capture how culture, mind, and brain interact. This article describes nine elements that outline how to do neuroanthropology research: (1) integrating biology and culture through neuroscience and biocultural anthropology; (2) extending focus of anthropology on what people say and do to include what people process; (3) sizing culture appropriately, from broad patterns of culture to culture in small-scale settings; (4) understanding patterns of cultural variation, in particular how culture produces patterns of shared variation; (5) considering individuals in interaction with culture, with levels of analysis that can go from biology to social structures; (6) focusing on interactive elements that bring together biological and cultural processes; (7) conceptual triangulation, which draws on anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience in conjunction with field, clinic, and laboratory; (8) critical complementarity as a way to integrate the strengths of critical scholarship with interdisciplinary work; and (9) using methodological triangulation as a way to advance interdisciplinary research. These elements are illustrated through three case studies: research on US combat veterans and how they use Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as a way to manage the transition to becoming civilians, work on human-raptor interactions to understand how and why these interactions can prove beneficial for human handlers, and adapting cue reactivity research on addiction to a field-based approach to understand how people interact with cues in naturalistic settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel H Lende
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States
| | - Breanne I Casper
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States
| | - Kaleigh B Hoyt
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States
| | - Gino L Collura
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States
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23
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Lübbert A, Göschl F, Krause H, Schneider TR, Maye A, Engel AK. Socializing Sensorimotor Contingencies. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:624610. [PMID: 34602990 PMCID: PMC8480310 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.624610] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 08/24/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
The aim of this review is to highlight the idea of grounding social cognition in sensorimotor interactions shared across agents. We discuss an action-oriented account that emerges from a broader interpretation of the concept of sensorimotor contingencies. We suggest that dynamic informational and sensorimotor coupling across agents can mediate the deployment of action-effect contingencies in social contexts. We propose this concept of socializing sensorimotor contingencies (socSMCs) as a shared framework of analysis for processes within and across brains and bodies, and their physical and social environments. In doing so, we integrate insights from different fields, including neuroscience, psychology, and research on human-robot interaction. We review studies on dynamic embodied interaction and highlight empirical findings that suggest an important role of sensorimotor and informational entrainment in social contexts. Furthermore, we discuss links to closely related concepts, such as enactivism, models of coordination dynamics and others, and clarify differences to approaches that focus on mentalizing and high-level cognitive representations. Moreover, we consider conceptual implications of rethinking cognition as social sensorimotor coupling. The insight that social cognitive phenomena like joint attention, mutual trust or empathy rely heavily on the informational and sensorimotor coupling between agents may provide novel remedies for people with disturbed social cognition and for situations of disturbed social interaction. Furthermore, our proposal has potential applications in the field of human-robot interaction where socSMCs principles might lead to more natural and intuitive interfaces for human users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Lübbert
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Florian Göschl
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Hanna Krause
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Till R. Schneider
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Alexander Maye
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas K. Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
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Saarimäki H. Naturalistic Stimuli in Affective Neuroimaging: A Review. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:675068. [PMID: 34220474 PMCID: PMC8245682 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.675068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Naturalistic stimuli such as movies, music, and spoken and written stories elicit strong emotions and allow brain imaging of emotions in close-to-real-life conditions. Emotions are multi-component phenomena: relevant stimuli lead to automatic changes in multiple functional components including perception, physiology, behavior, and conscious experiences. Brain activity during naturalistic stimuli reflects all these changes, suggesting that parsing emotion-related processing during such complex stimulation is not a straightforward task. Here, I review affective neuroimaging studies that have employed naturalistic stimuli to study emotional processing, focusing especially on experienced emotions. I argue that to investigate emotions with naturalistic stimuli, we need to define and extract emotion features from both the stimulus and the observer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heini Saarimäki
- Human Information Processing Laboratory, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
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Escitalopram enhances synchrony of brain responses during emotional narratives in patients with major depressive disorder. Neuroimage 2021; 237:118110. [PMID: 33933596 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2021] [Revised: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 04/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
One-week treatment with escitalopram decreases amygdala responses to fearful facial expressions in depressed patients, but it remains unknown whether it also modulates processing of complex and freely processed emotional stimuli resembling daily life emotional situations. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) offers a means to track brain activity during complex, dynamic stimuli in a model-free manner. Twenty-nine treatment-seeking patients with major depressive disorder were randomized in a double-blind study design to receive either escitalopram or placebo for one week, after which functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed. During fMRI the participants listened to spoken emotional narratives. Level of ISC between the escitalopram and the placebo group was compared across all the narratives and separately for the episodes with positive and negative valence. Across all the narratives, the escitalopram group had higher ISC in the default mode network of the brain as well as in the fronto-temporal narrative processing regions, whereas lower ISC was seen in the middle temporal cortex, hippocampus and occipital cortex. Escitalopram increased ISC during positive parts of the narratives in the precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and fronto-insular cortex, whereas there was no significant synchronization in brain responses to positive vs negative events in the placebo group. Increased ISC may imply improved emotional synchronization with others, particularly during observation of positive events. Further studies are needed to test whether this contributes to the later therapeutic effect of escitalopram.
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The Potential Role of Dopamine in Mediating Motor Function and Interpersonal Synchrony. Biomedicines 2021; 9:biomedicines9040382. [PMID: 33916451 PMCID: PMC8066519 DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines9040382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2020] [Revised: 03/29/2021] [Accepted: 03/31/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Motor functions in general and motor planning in particular are crucial for our ability to synchronize our movements with those of others. To date, these co-occurring functions have been studied separately, and as yet it is unclear whether they share a common biological mechanism. Here, we synthesize disparate recent findings on motor functioning and interpersonal synchrony and propose that these two functions share a common neurobiological mechanism and adhere to the same principles of predictive coding. Critically, we describe the pivotal role of the dopaminergic system in modulating these two distinct functions. We present attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as an example of a disorder that involves the dopaminergic system and describe deficits in motor and interpersonal synchrony. Finally, we suggest possible directions for future studies emphasizing the role of dopamine modulation as a link between social and motor functioning.
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Yager J. Sleepy Psychotherapists: How Clinicians' Biological Factors May Affect the Conduct of Psychotherapy. Am J Psychother 2021; 74:30-35. [PMID: 33715396 DOI: 10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.20200030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Numerous therapist variables and cognitive biases can affect the quality of the therapeutic alliance and the conduct and outcomes of psychotherapy. This article aims to examine factors that potentially affect clinician performance, including chronobiological variables of clinicians and patients. METHODS The author reviewed literature pertaining to biological influences on human cognitive performance and considered how these factors may apply to the practice of psychotherapy. RESULTS Biological factors potentially affecting the conduct and quality of psychotherapy were identified. These factors include decision fatigue, hunger, sleep deficit, shift work, and several chronobiological issues related to circadian rhythms and episodic ultradian rhythms. In addition, misaligned scheduling of psychotherapy sessions in relation to therapist and patient evening-morning chronotypes may impede the effectiveness of psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS The practice of psychotherapy is cognitively demanding, requiring that clinicians remain constantly alert and in command of their executive functions. Decreases in clinician alertness resulting from homeostatic depletion, chronobiologically misaligned schedules, and illness-associated factors may reduce the quality and benefit of psychotherapy sessions. Mitigation strategies are available. Investigations of these factors are needed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joel Yager
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora
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Yeshurun Y, Nguyen M, Hasson U. The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world. Nat Rev Neurosci 2021; 22:181-192. [PMID: 33483717 PMCID: PMC7959111 DOI: 10.1038/s41583-020-00420-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 237] [Impact Index Per Article: 79.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/10/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
The default mode network (DMN) is classically considered an 'intrinsic' system, specializing in internally oriented cognitive processes such as daydreaming, reminiscing and future planning. In this Perspective, we suggest that the DMN is an active and dynamic 'sense-making' network that integrates incoming extrinsic information with prior intrinsic information to form rich, context-dependent models of situations as they unfold over time. We review studies that relied on naturalistic stimuli, such as stories and movies, to demonstrate how an individual's DMN neural responses are influenced both by external information accumulated as events unfold over time and by the individual's idiosyncratic past memories and knowledge. The integration of extrinsic and intrinsic information over long timescales provides a space for negotiating a shared neural code, which is necessary for establishing shared meaning, shared communication tools, shared narratives and, above all, shared communities and social networks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yaara Yeshurun
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
| | - Mai Nguyen
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Uri Hasson
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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30
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Dieffenbach MC, Gillespie GSR, Burns SM, McCulloh IA, Ames DL, Dagher MM, Falk EB, Lieberman MD. Neural reference groups: a synchrony-based classification approach for predicting attitudes using fNIRS. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 16:117-128. [PMID: 33025001 PMCID: PMC7812626 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2020] [Revised: 06/19/2020] [Accepted: 09/29/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Social neuroscience research has demonstrated that those who are like-minded are also 'like-brained.' Studies have shown that people who share similar viewpoints have greater neural synchrony with one another, and less synchrony with people who 'see things differently.' Although these effects have been demonstrated at the 'group level,' little work has been done to predict the viewpoints of specific 'individuals' using neural synchrony measures. Furthermore, the studies that have made predictions using synchrony-based classification at the individual level used expensive and immobile neuroimaging equipment (e.g. functional magnetic resonance imaging) in highly controlled laboratory settings, which may not generalize to real-world contexts. Thus, this study uses a simple synchrony-based classification method, which we refer to as the 'neural reference groups' approach, to predict individuals' dispositional attitudes from data collected in a mobile 'pop-up neuroscience' lab. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy data, we predicted individuals' partisan stances on a sociopolitical issue by comparing their neural timecourses to data from two partisan neural reference groups. We found that partisan stance could be identified at above-chance levels using data from dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that the neural reference groups approach can be used to investigate naturally occurring, dispositional differences anywhere in the world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Macrina C Dieffenbach
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Grace S R Gillespie
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Shannon M Burns
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Ian A McCulloh
- Accenture Federal Services, 800 N Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22203
| | - Daniel L Ames
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Munqith M Dagher
- Independent Institute & Administration Civil Society Studies (IIACSS) Research Group, Al Hussam Center 2 270 Arar Mustafa Wahbii Al Tal, Amman, Jordan
| | - Emily B Falk
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA, Wharton Marketing Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA, University of Pennsylvania
| | - Matthew D Lieberman
- Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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Levy J, Lankinen K, Hakonen M, Feldman R. The integration of social and neural synchrony: a case for ecologically valid research using MEG neuroimaging. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 16:143-152. [PMID: 32382751 PMCID: PMC7812634 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2020] [Revised: 04/06/2020] [Accepted: 04/27/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The recent decade has seen a shift from artificial and environmentally deprived experiments in neuroscience to real-life studies on multiple brains in interaction, coordination and synchrony. In these new interpersonal synchrony experiments, there has been a growing trend to employ naturalistic social interactions to evaluate mechanisms underlying synchronous neuronal communication. Here, we emphasize the importance of integrating the assessment of neural synchrony with measurement of nonverbal behavioral synchrony as expressed in various social contexts: relaxed social interactions, planning a joint pleasurable activity, conflict discussion, invocation of trauma, or support giving and assess the integration of neural and behavioral synchrony across developmental stages and psychopathological conditions. We also showcase the advantages of magnetoencephalography neuroimaging as a promising tool for studying interactive neural synchrony and consider the challenge of ecological validity at the expense of experimental rigor. We review recent evidence of rhythmic information flow between brains in interaction and conclude with addressing state-of-the-art developments that may contribute to advance research on brain-to-brain coordination to the next level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonathan Levy
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland
- Interdisciplinary Center, Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Herzliya 46150, Israel
| | - Kaisu Lankinen
- Department of Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
- Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Maria Hakonen
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland
- Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Ruth Feldman
- Interdisciplinary Center, Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Herzliya 46150, Israel
- Yale University, Child Study Center, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
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Abstract
Humans interact in groups through various perception and action channels. The continuity of interaction despite a transient loss of perceptual contact often exists and contributes to goal achievement. Here, we study the dynamics of this continuity, in two experiments involving groups of participants ([Formula: see text]) synchronizing their movements in space and in time. We show that behavioural unison can be maintained after perceptual contact has been lost, for about 7s. Agent similarity and spatial configuration in the group modulated synchronization performance, differently so when perceptual interaction was present or when it was memorized. Modelling these data through a network of oscillators enabled us to clarify the double origin of this memory effect, of individual and social nature. These results shed new light into why humans continue to move in unison after perceptual interruption, and are consequential for a wide variety of applications at work, in art and in sport.
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Aliko S, Huang J, Gheorghiu F, Meliss S, Skipper JI. A naturalistic neuroimaging database for understanding the brain using ecological stimuli. Sci Data 2020; 7:347. [PMID: 33051448 PMCID: PMC7555491 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-020-00680-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2020] [Accepted: 09/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Neuroimaging has advanced our understanding of human psychology using reductionist stimuli that often do not resemble information the brain naturally encounters. It has improved our understanding of the network organization of the brain mostly through analyses of 'resting-state' data for which the functions of networks cannot be verifiably labelled. We make a 'Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database' (NNDb v1.0) publically available to allow for a more complete understanding of the brain under more ecological conditions during which networks can be labelled. Eighty-six participants underwent behavioural testing and watched one of 10 full-length movies while functional magnetic resonance imaging was acquired. Resulting timeseries data are shown to be of high quality, with good signal-to-noise ratio, few outliers and low movement. Data-driven functional analyses provide further evidence of data quality. They also demonstrate accurate timeseries/movie alignment and how movie annotations might be used to label networks. The NNDb can be used to answer questions previously unaddressed with standard neuroimaging approaches, progressing our knowledge of how the brain works in the real world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Aliko
- London Interdisciplinary Biosciences Consortium, University College London, London, UK.
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
| | - Jiawen Huang
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Stefanie Meliss
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
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Finding the neural correlates of collaboration using a three-person fMRI hyperscanning paradigm. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:23066-23072. [PMID: 32843342 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1917407117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans have an extraordinary ability to interact and cooperate with others. Despite the social and evolutionary significance of collaboration, research on finding its neural correlates has been limited partly due to restrictions on the simultaneous neuroimaging of more than one participant (also known as hyperscanning). Several studies have used dyadic fMRI hyperscanning to examine the interaction between two participants. However, to our knowledge, no study to date has aimed at revealing the neural correlates of social interactions using a three-person (or triadic) fMRI hyperscanning paradigm. Here, we simultaneously measured the blood-oxygenation level-dependent signal from 12 triads (n = 36 participants), while they engaged in a collaborative drawing task based on the social game of Pictionary General linear model analysis revealed increased activation in the brain regions previously linked with the theory of mind during the collaborative phase compared to the independent phase of the task. Furthermore, using intersubject correlation analysis, we revealed increased synchronization of the right temporo-parietal junction (R TPJ) during the collaborative phase. The increased synchrony in the R TPJ was observed to be positively associated with the overall team performance on the task. In sum, our paradigm revealed a vital role of the R TPJ among other theory-of-mind regions during a triadic collaborative drawing task.
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35
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Uddin LQ. Bring the Noise: Reconceptualizing Spontaneous Neural Activity. Trends Cogn Sci 2020; 24:734-746. [PMID: 32600967 PMCID: PMC7429348 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 69] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2020] [Revised: 06/04/2020] [Accepted: 06/05/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Definitions of what constitutes the 'signal of interest' in neuroscience can be controversial, due in part to continuously evolving notions regarding the significance of spontaneous neural activity. This review highlights how the challenge of separating brain signal from noise has led to new conceptualizations of brain functional organization at both the micro- and macroscopic level. Recent debates in the functional neuroimaging community surrounding artifact removal processes have revived earlier discussions surrounding how to appropriately isolate and measure neuronal signals against a background of noise from various sources. Insights from electrophysiological studies and computational modeling can inform current theory and data analytic practices in human functional neuroimaging, given that signal and noise may be inextricably linked in the brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucina Q Uddin
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, PO Box 248185-0751, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA; Neuroscience Program, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
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36
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Redcay E, Moraczewski D. Social cognition in context: A naturalistic imaging approach. Neuroimage 2020; 216:116392. [PMID: 31770637 PMCID: PMC7244370 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116392] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2019] [Revised: 10/23/2019] [Accepted: 11/21/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Social processing occurs within dynamic, complex, and multimodal contexts, but the study of social cognition typically involves static, artificial stimuli. Naturalistic approaches (e.g., movie viewing) can recapture the richness and complexity of real-world interactions. Novel analytic approaches allow for the investigation of functional brain organization in response to contextually embedded and extended events with a complex temporal structure during movie viewing or narrative processing. In addition to these within-brain measures, movies afford between-brain analyses such as inter-subject correlation, which allows for identification of stimulus-specific brain response through the correlation of brain activity between participants' brains. Research using these approaches offers both practical and theoretical advantages in understanding how we navigate our social world. Practically, movies are engaging stimuli that allow for more rapid presentation of multiple event types and improve compliance even in very young populations. Theoretically, studies have validated the use of these measures by demonstrating functional selectivity to contextually embedded stimuli. Naturalistic approaches also allow for novel insights. For example, regions associated with social cognition have longer temporal receptive windows, making them well suited to social-cognitive processes that require integration of information over longer timescales. Furthermore, the similarity in the temporal and spatial brain response between individuals during naturalistic viewing is related to age, predictive of friendships, and reduced in autism spectrum disorder. These findings offer first glimpses into the power of using these naturalistic, dynamic approaches to understand how we perceive, reason about, and interact with others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Redcay
- Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
| | - Dustin Moraczewski
- Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA; Computation and Mathematics for Biological Networks, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
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37
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Lahnakoski JM, Forbes PA, McCall C, Schilbach L. Unobtrusive tracking of interpersonal orienting and distance predicts the subjective quality of social interactions. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2020; 7:191815. [PMID: 32968493 PMCID: PMC7481680 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191815] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2020] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Interpersonal coordination of behaviour is essential for smooth social interactions. Measures of interpersonal behaviour, however, often rely on subjective evaluations, invasive measurement techniques or gross measures of motion. Here, we constructed an unobtrusive motion tracking system that enables detailed analysis of behaviour at the individual and interpersonal levels, which we validated using wearable sensors. We evaluate dyadic measures of joint orienting and distancing, synchrony and gaze behaviours to summarize data collected during natural conversation and joint action tasks. Our results demonstrate that patterns of proxemic behaviours, rather than more widely used measures of interpersonal synchrony, best predicted the subjective quality of the interactions. Increased distance between participants predicted lower enjoyment, while increased joint orienting towards each other during cooperation correlated with increased effort reported by the participants. Importantly, the interpersonal distance was most informative of the quality of interaction when task demands and experimental control were minimal. These results suggest that interpersonal measures of behaviour gathered during minimally constrained social interactions are particularly sensitive for the subjective quality of social interactions and may be useful for interaction-based phenotyping for further studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juha M. Lahnakoski
- Independent Max Planck Research Group for Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2-10, 80804 Munich, Germany
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain & Behaviour (INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Wilhelm-Johnen-Straße, 52428 Jülich, Germany
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Moorenstr. 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Paul A.G. Forbes
- Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, 1010 Vienna, Austria
| | - Cade McCall
- Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
| | - Leonhard Schilbach
- Independent Max Planck Research Group for Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Kraepelinstr. 2-10, 80804 Munich, Germany
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Nussbaumstr. 7, 80336 Munich, Germany
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McNabb CB, Burgess LG, Fancourt A, Mulligan N, FitzGibbon L, Riddell P, Murayama K. No evidence for a relationship between social closeness and similarity in resting-state functional brain connectivity in schoolchildren. Sci Rep 2020; 10:10710. [PMID: 32612156 PMCID: PMC7329826 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67718-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2020] [Accepted: 06/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous research suggests that the proximity of individuals in a social network predicts how similarly their brains respond to naturalistic stimuli. However, the relationship between social connectedness and brain connectivity in the absence of external stimuli has not been examined. To investigate whether neural homophily between friends exists at rest we collected resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 68 school-aged girls, along with social network information from all pupils in their year groups (total 5,066 social dyads). Participants were asked to rate the amount of time they voluntarily spent with each person in their year group, and directed social network matrices and community structure were then determined from these data. No statistically significant relationships between social distance, community homogeneity and similarity of global-level resting-state connectivity were observed. Nor were we able to predict social distance using a regularised regression technique (i.e. elastic net regression based on the local-level similarities in resting-state whole-brain connectivity between participants). Although neural homophily between friends exists when viewing naturalistic stimuli, this finding did not extend to functional connectivity at rest in our population. Instead, resting-state connectivity may be less susceptible to the influences of a person's social environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolyn Beth McNabb
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Harry Pitt Building, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 7BE, UK.
| | - Laura Grace Burgess
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Harry Pitt Building, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 7BE, UK
| | - Amy Fancourt
- BrainCanDo, Queen Anne's School, Reading, RG4 6DX, UK
| | | | - Lily FitzGibbon
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Harry Pitt Building, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 7BE, UK
| | - Patricia Riddell
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Harry Pitt Building, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 7BE, UK
| | - Kou Murayama
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Harry Pitt Building, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 7BE, UK
- Research Institute, Kochi University of Technology, Kami, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan
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Xiao X, Zhou Y, Liu J, Ye Z, Yao L, Zhang J, Chen C, Xue G. Individual-specific and shared representations during episodic memory encoding and retrieval. Neuroimage 2020; 217:116909. [PMID: 32387627 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116909] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2020] [Revised: 04/12/2020] [Accepted: 05/03/2020] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Although human memories seem unique to each individual, they are shared to a great extent across individuals. Previous studies have examined, separately, subject-specific and cross-subject shared representations during memory encoding and retrieval, but how shared memories are formed from individually encoded representations is not clearly understood. Using a unique fMRI design involving memory encoding and retrieval, and representational similarity analysis to link representations from different individuals, brain regions, and processing stages, the current study revealed that distributed brain regions showed both subject-specific and shared neural representations during both memory encoding and retrieval. Furthermore, different brain regions showed stage-specific representational strength, with the visual cortex showing greater unique and shared representations during encoding, whereas the left angular gyrus showing greater unique and shared representations during retrieval. The neural representations during encoding were transformed during retrieval, as shown by smaller cross-subject encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS) than cross-subject similarity either during encoding or during retrieval. This cross-subject and cross-stage similarity was found both within and across regions, with strong pattern similarity between the encoded representation in VVC and the retrieved representation in the angular gyrus. Simulation analysis further suggested that these patterns could be achieved by incorporating stage-specific representational strength, and cross-region reinstatement from encoding to retrieval, but not by a common transformation from encoding to retrieval across subjects. Together, our results shed light on how memory representations are encoded and transformed to maintain individual characteristics and at the same time to create shared representations to facilitate interpersonal communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoqian Xiao
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China; School of Informatics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Yu Zhou
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Jing Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Zhifang Ye
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Li Yao
- School of Informatics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Jiacai Zhang
- School of Informatics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China
| | - Chuansheng Chen
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, 92697, USA
| | - Gui Xue
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, PR China.
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40
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Eickhoff SB, Milham M, Vanderwal T. Towards clinical applications of movie fMRI. Neuroimage 2020; 217:116860. [PMID: 32376301 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116860] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2019] [Revised: 03/30/2020] [Accepted: 04/14/2020] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
As evidenced by the present special issue, movie fMRI is emerging as a powerful tool for exploring brain function and characterizing its variation across individuals. Here, we provide a brief perspective on the potential of movie fMRI for advancing the discovery of brain imaging-based markers of psychiatric illness. We discuss relevant gaps and opportunities in movie fMRI, and propose community-level models that might accelerate the pace of discovery of fMRI-based biomarkers in psychiatry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon B Eickhoff
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain & Behaviour (INM-7), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Michael Milham
- Center for the Developing Brain, Child Mind Institute, New York, NY, USA; Center for Biomedical Imaging and Neuromodulation, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, New York, NY, USA
| | - Tamara Vanderwal
- Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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41
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Long M, Verbeke W, Ein-Dor T, Vrtička P. A functional neuro-anatomical model of human attachment (NAMA): Insights from first- and second-person social neuroscience. Cortex 2020; 126:281-321. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2019] [Revised: 10/14/2019] [Accepted: 01/20/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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42
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The effects of interaction quality on neural synchrony during mother-child problem solving. Cortex 2020; 124:235-249. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.11.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2019] [Revised: 10/01/2019] [Accepted: 11/27/2019] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
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43
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Dissociable neural systems for unconditioned acute and sustained fear. Neuroimage 2020; 216:116522. [PMID: 31926280 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2019] [Revised: 12/19/2019] [Accepted: 01/03/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Fear protects organisms by increasing vigilance and preparedness, and by coordinating survival responses during life-threatening encounters. The fear circuit must thus operate on multiple timescales ranging from preparatory sustained alertness to acute fight-or-flight responses. Here we studied the brain basis of sustained and acute fear using naturalistic functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) enabling analysis of different time-scales of fear responses. Subjects (N = 37) watched feature-length horror movies while their hemodynamic brain activity was measured with fMRI. Time-variable intersubject correlation (ISC) was used to quantify the reliability of brain activity across participants, and seed-based phase synchronization was used for characterizing dynamic connectivity. Subjective ratings of fear were used to assess how synchronization and functional connectivity varied with emotional intensity. These data suggest that acute and sustained fear are supported by distinct neural pathways, with sustained fear amplifying mainly sensory responses, and acute fear increasing activity in brainstem, thalamus, amygdala and cingulate cortices. Sustained fear increased ISC in regions associated with acute fear, and also amplified functional connectivity within this network. The results were replicated in an independent experiment with a different subject sample and stimulus movie. The functional interplay between cortical networks involved in sustained anticipation of, and acute response to, threat involves a complex and dynamic interaction that depends on the proximity of threat, and the need to employ threat appraisals and vigilance for decision making and response selection.
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44
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Renvall V, Kauramäki J, Malinen S, Hari R, Nummenmaa L. Imaging Real-Time Tactile Interaction With Two-Person Dual-Coil fMRI. Front Psychiatry 2020; 11:279. [PMID: 32411021 PMCID: PMC7198901 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2019] [Accepted: 03/23/2020] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Studies of brain mechanisms supporting social interaction are demanding because real interaction only occurs when persons are in contact. Instead, most brain imaging studies scan subjects individually. Here we present a proof-of-concept demonstration of two-person blood oxygenation dependent (BOLD) imaging of brain activity from two individuals interacting inside the bore of a single MRI scanner. We developed a custom 16-channel (8 + 8 channels) two-helmet coil with two separate receiver-coil pairs providing whole-brain coverage, while bringing participants into a shared physical space and realistic face-to-face contact. Ten subject pairs were scanned with the setup. During the experiment, subjects took turns in tapping each other's lip versus observing and feeling the taps timed by auditory instructions. Networks of sensorimotor brain areas were engaged alternatingly in the subjects during executing motor actions as well as observing and feeling them; these responses were clearly distinguishable from the auditory responses occurring similarly in both participants. Even though the signal-to-noise ratio of our coil system was compromised compared with standard 32-channel head coils, our results show that the two-person fMRI scanning is feasible for studying the brain basis of social interaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ville Renvall
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland.,Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland
| | - Jaakko Kauramäki
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland
| | - Sanna Malinen
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland
| | - Riitta Hari
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland.,Department of Art, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Espoo, Finland
| | - Lauri Nummenmaa
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland.,Turku PET Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
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45
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Smirnov D, Saarimäki H, Glerean E, Hari R, Sams M, Nummenmaa L. Emotions amplify speaker-listener neural alignment. Hum Brain Mapp 2019; 40:4777-4788. [PMID: 31400052 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24736] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2019] [Revised: 07/14/2019] [Accepted: 07/15/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals often align their emotional states during conversation. Here, we reveal how such emotional alignment is reflected in synchronization of brain activity across speakers and listeners. Two "speaker" subjects told emotional and neutral autobiographical stories while their hemodynamic brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The stories were recorded and played back to 16 "listener" subjects during fMRI. After scanning, both speakers and listeners rated the moment-to-moment valence and arousal of the stories. Time-varying similarity of the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) time series was quantified by intersubject phase synchronization (ISPS) between speaker-listener pairs. Telling and listening to the stories elicited similar emotions across speaker-listener pairs. Arousal was associated with increased speaker-listener neural synchronization in brain regions supporting attentional, auditory, somatosensory, and motor processing. Valence was associated with increased speaker-listener neural synchronization in brain regions involved in emotional processing, including amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal pole. Speaker-listener synchronization of subjective feelings of arousal was associated with increased neural synchronization in somatosensory and subcortical brain regions; synchronization of valence was associated with neural synchronization in parietal cortices and midline structures. We propose that emotion-dependent speaker-listener neural synchronization is associated with emotional contagion, thereby implying that listeners reproduce some aspects of the speaker's emotional state at the neural level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dmitry Smirnov
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE), and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Heini Saarimäki
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE), and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Enrico Glerean
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE), and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Riitta Hari
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE), and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.,Department of Art, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Mikko Sams
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering (NBE), and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Lauri Nummenmaa
- Turku PET Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.,Turku University Hospital, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
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46
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Nastase SA, Gazzola V, Hasson U, Keysers C. Measuring shared responses across subjects using intersubject correlation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2019; 14:667-685. [PMID: 31099394 PMCID: PMC6688448 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsz037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 112] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2019] [Revised: 05/10/2019] [Accepted: 05/13/2019] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Our capacity to jointly represent information about the world underpins our social experience. By leveraging one individual's brain activity to model another's, we can measure shared information across brains-even in dynamic, naturalistic scenarios where an explicit response model may be unobtainable. Introducing experimental manipulations allows us to measure, for example, shared responses between speakers and listeners or between perception and recall. In this tutorial, we develop the logic of intersubject correlation (ISC) analysis and discuss the family of neuroscientific questions that stem from this approach. We also extend this logic to spatially distributed response patterns and functional network estimation. We provide a thorough and accessible treatment of methodological considerations specific to ISC analysis and outline best practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel A Nastase
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Valeria Gazzola
- Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, KNAW, 105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Uri Hasson
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Christian Keysers
- Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, KNAW, 105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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47
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Vanderwal T, Eilbott J, Castellanos FX. Movies in the magnet: Naturalistic paradigms in developmental functional neuroimaging. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 36:100600. [PMID: 30551970 PMCID: PMC6969259 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 96] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2018] [Revised: 09/13/2018] [Accepted: 10/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
The use of movie-watching as an acquisition state for functional connectivity (FC) MRI has recently enabled multiple groups to obtain rich data sets in younger children with both substantial sample sizes and scan durations. Using naturalistic paradigms such as movies has also provided analytic flexibility for these developmental studies that extends beyond conventional resting state approaches. This review highlights the advantages and challenges of using movies for developmental neuroimaging and explores some of the methodological issues involved in designing pediatric studies with movies. Emerging themes from movie-watching studies are discussed, including an emphasis on intersubject correlations, developmental changes in network interactions under complex naturalistic conditions, and dynamic age-related changes in both sensory and higher-order network FC even in narrow age ranges. Converging evidence suggests an enhanced ability to identify brain-behavior correlations in children when using movie-watching data relative to both resting state and conventional tasks. Future directions and cautionary notes highlight the potential and the limitations of using movies to study FC in pediatric populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamara Vanderwal
- University of British Columbia, 2255 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 2A1, Canada; Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, New Haven CT, 06519, United States.
| | - Jeffrey Eilbott
- Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, New Haven CT, 06519, United States
| | - F Xavier Castellanos
- The Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center, 1 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States; Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, 140 Old Orangeburg Road, Orangeburg, NY, 10962, United States
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48
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Amodio DM, Keysers C. Editorial overview: New advances in social neuroscience: from neural computations to social structures. Curr Opin Psychol 2018; 24:iv-vi. [PMID: 30442572 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.10.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- David M Amodio
- Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY, 10003, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129 B, P.O. Box 15900, 1001 NK, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
| | - Christian Keysers
- Social Brain Lab, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, KNAW, Meibergdreef 47, 1105BA Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Psychology, Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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49
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Liu D, Liu S, Liu X, Zhang C, Li A, Jin C, Chen Y, Wang H, Zhang X. Interactive Brain Activity: Review and Progress on EEG-Based Hyperscanning in Social Interactions. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1862. [PMID: 30349495 PMCID: PMC6186988 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 77] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2018] [Accepted: 09/12/2018] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
When individuals interact with others, perceived information is transmitted among their brains. The EEG-based hyperscanning technique, which provides an approach to explore dynamic brain activities between two or more interactive individuals and their underlying neural mechanisms, has been applied to study different aspects of social interactions since 2010. Recently there has been an increase in research on EEG-based hyperscanning of social interactions. This paper summarizes the application of EEG-based hyperscanning on the dynamic brain activities during social interactions according to the experimental designs and contents, discusses the possibility of applying inter-brain synchrony to social communication systems and analyzes the contributions and the limitations of these investigations. Furthermore, this paper sheds light on some new challenges to future EEG-based hyperscanning studies and the emerging field of EEG-based hyperscanning for pursuing the broader research field of social interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Difei Liu
- School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.,Department of Education, Hefei University, Hefei, China
| | - Shen Liu
- School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
| | - Xiaoming Liu
- School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.,School of Foreign Languages, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei, China
| | - Chong Zhang
- Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Aosika Li
- Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Chenggong Jin
- CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, and School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
| | - Yijun Chen
- School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
| | - Hangwei Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, and School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
| | - Xiaochu Zhang
- School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.,CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, and School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.,Hefei Medical Research Center on Alcohol Addiction, Anhui Mental Health Center, Hefei, China.,Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
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50
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Wagner DD, Chavez RS, Broom TW. Decoding the neural representation of self and person knowledge with multivariate pattern analysis and data-driven approaches. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2018; 10:e1482. [PMID: 30255985 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1482] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2018] [Revised: 08/05/2018] [Accepted: 08/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Multivariate pattern analysis and data-driven approaches to understand how the human brain encodes sensory information and higher level conceptual knowledge have become increasingly dominant in visual and cognitive neuroscience; however, it is only in recent years that these methods have been applied to the domain of social information processing. This review examines recent research in the field of social cognitive neuroscience focusing on how multivariate pattern analysis (e.g., pattern classification, representational similarity analysis) and data-driven methods (e.g., reverse correlation, intersubject correlation) have been used to decode and characterize high-level information about the self, other persons, and social groups. We begin with a review of what is known about how self-referential processing and person perception are represented in the medial prefrontal cortex based on conventional activation-based neuroimaging approaches. This is followed by a nontechnical overview of current multivariate pattern-based and data-driven neuroimaging methods designed to characterize and/or decode neural representations. The remainder of the review focuses on examining how these methods have been applied to the topic of self, person perception, and the perception of social groups. In this review, we highlight recent trends (e.g., analysis of social networks, decoding race and social groups, and the use of naturalistic stimuli) and discuss several theoretical challenges that arise from the application of these new methods to the question of how the brain represents knowledge about the self and others. This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dylan D Wagner
- Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
| | - Robert S Chavez
- Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
| | - Timothy W Broom
- Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
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