Interpersonal Motor Interactions Shape Multisensory Representations of the Peripersonal Space

Meeting the multidimensional self: fostering selfhood at the interface of Creative Arts Therapies and neuroscience

Intriguing explorations at the intersection of the fields of neuroscience and psychology are driven by the quest to understand the neural underpinnings of "the self" and their psychotherapeutic implications. These translational efforts pertain to the unique Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) and the attributes and value of the self-related processes they offer. The self is considered as a multi-layered complex construct, comprising bodily and mental constituents, subjective-objective perspectives, spatial and temporal dimensions. Neuroscience research, mostly functional brain imaging, has proposed cogent models of the constitution, development and experience of the self, elucidating how the multiple dimensions of the self are supported by integrated hierarchical brain processes. The psychotherapeutic use of the art-forms, generating aesthetic experiences and creative processes, touch upon and connect the various layers of self-experience, nurturing the sense of self. The present conceptual analysis will describe and interweave the neural mechanisms and neural network configuration suggested to lie at the core of the ongoing self-experience, its deviations in psychopathology, and implications regarding the psychotherapeutic use of the arts. The well-established, parsimonious and neurobiologically plausible predictive processing account of brain-function will be discussed with regard to selfhood and consciousness. The epistemic affordance of the experiential CATs will further be portrayed, enabling and facilitating the creation of updated self-models of the body in the world. The neuropsychological impact of the relational therapeutic encounter will be delineated, acknowledging the intersubjective brain synchronization through communicative verbal and non-verbal means and aesthetic experiences. The recognition and assimilation of neuroscientific, phenomenological and clinical perspectives concerning the nested dimensionality of the self, ground the relational therapeutic process and the neuroplastic modulations that CATs have to offer on the premise of fostering, shaping and integrating selfhood.

Linking the inner and outer mental representations of the body to social cognition skills: A systematic review and meta-analysis

An interesting interpretation of embodiment highlights the critical role of mental body representations (BR), including motor, somatosensory, and interoceptive formats, for social cognition. However, the nature of this relationship is still debated at the empirical level, with various studies arriving at different conclusions. Here, we present a systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarize data from 3466 participants in 21 studies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between inner and outer BR and social cognition. We focused on two core social cognition aspects: empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM). Concerning the inner BR, our meta-analytic findings reveal a significant correlation between specific interoceptive dimensions (i.e., interoceptive sensibility and accuracy) and social cognition, which was stronger for empathy than ToM. Conversely, although further research is needed, functional BR that mainly involve the outer body processing (i.e., nonaction-oriented BR) may show positive links with ToM. These findings point to specific interactions between BR and social cognition skills, supporting multi-faceted and embodied social cognition models. However, we also identified critical knowledge gaps and highlighted the need for further investigation to deepen our theoretical understanding of these relationships and their implications for clinical practice.

Neuroanatomical correlates of peripersonal space: bridging the gap between perception, action, emotion and social cognition

Peripersonal space (PPS) is a construct referring to the portion of space immediately surrounding our bodies, where most of the interactions between the subject and the environment, including other individuals, take place. Decades of animal and human neuroscience research have revealed that the brain holds a separate representation of this region of space: this distinct spatial representation has evolved to ensure proper relevance to stimuli that are close to the body and prompt an appropriate behavioral response. The neural underpinnings of such construct have been thoroughly investigated by different generations of studies involving anatomical and electrophysiological investigations in animal models, and, recently, neuroimaging experiments in human subjects. Here, we provide a comprehensive anatomical overview of the anatomical circuitry underlying PPS representation in the human brain. Gathering evidence from multiple areas of research, we identified cortical and subcortical regions that are involved in specific aspects of PPS encoding.We show how these regions are part of segregated, yet integrated functional networks within the brain, which are in turn involved in higher-order integration of information. This wide-scale circuitry accounts for the relevance of PPS encoding in multiple brain functions, including not only motor planning and visuospatial attention but also emotional and social cognitive aspects. A complete characterization of these circuits may clarify the derangements of PPS representation observed in different neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases.

Searching for the Metaverse: Neuroscience of Physical and Digital Communities

What distinguishes real-world communities from their online counterparts? Social and cognitive neuroscience research on social networks and collective intentionality will be used in the article to answer this question. Physical communities are born in places. And places engage "we-mode" neurobiological and cognitive processes as behavioral synchrony, shared attention, deliberate attunement, interbrain synchronization, and so on, which create coherent social networks of very different individuals who are supported by a "wisdom of crowd." Digital technologies remove physical boundaries, giving people more freedom to choose their activities and groups. At the same time, however, the lack of physical co-presence of community members significantly reduces their possibility of activating "we-mode" cognitive processes and social motivation. Because of this, unlike physical communities that allow interaction between people from varied origins and stories, digital communities are always made up of people who have the same interests and knowledge (communities of practice). This new situation disrupts the "wisdom of crowd," making the community more radical and less accurate (polarization effect), allowing influential users to wield disproportionate influence over the group's beliefs, and producing inequalities in the distribution of social capital. However, a new emergent technology-the Metaverse-has the potential to reverse this trend. Several studies have revealed that virtual and augmented reality-the major technologies underlying the Metaverse-can engage the same neurobiological and cognitive "we-mode" processes as real-world environments. If the many flaws in this technology are fixed, it might encourage people to engage in more meaningful and constructive interactions in online communities.

The Body in Neurosciences: Representation, Perception and Space Processing

The Special Issue "The Body in Neurosciences: Representation, Perception and Space Processing" deals with the understanding of body processing in terms of the multisensorial perception of bodily related information, interoception, and mental representation, as well as its relationship with the peripersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal spaces, integrating findings from normal and pathological functioning [...].

The social roots of self development: from a bodily to an intellectual interpersonal dialogue

In this paper, we propose that interpersonal bodily interactions represent a fertile ground in which the bodily and psychological self is developed, gradually allowing for forms of more abstract and disembodied interactions. We start by focusing on how early infant-caregiver bodily interactions play a crucial role in shaping the boundaries of the self but also in learning to predict others' behavior. We then explore the social function of the sense of touch in the entire life span, highlighting its role in promoting physical and psychological well-being by supporting positive interpersonal exchanges. We go on by introducing the concept of implicit theory of mind, as the early ability to interpret others' intentions, possibly grounded in infant-caregiver bodily exchanges (embodied practices). In the following part, we consider so-called higher level forms of social interaction: intellectual exchanges among individuals. In this regard, we defend the view that, beside the apparent private dimension of "thinking abstractly", using abstract concepts is intrinsically a social process, as it entails the re-enactment of the internalized dialogue through which we acquired the concepts in the first place. Finally, we describe how the hypothesis of "dialectical attunement" may explain the development of abstract thinking: to effectively transform the world according to their survival needs, individuals co-construct structured concepts of it; by doing so, humans fundamentally transform not merely the world they are being in, but their being in the world.

Neural Alterations in Interpersonal Distance (IPD) Cognition and Its Correlation with IPD Behavior: A Systematic Review

Background. Interpersonal distance (IPD) plays a critical role in a human being’s social life, especially during interpersonal interaction, and IPD is non-verbal social information and not only provides silent cues but also provides a secure space for personal relationships. IPD has been a research field of neural studies from the recent decade, researches had provided behavior and neural correlates of IPD. Objectives. This review aims to summarize the experimental paradigms of IPD-neural research, to reveal the neural activity processes associated with it, and to explore the correlation between IPD-neural activity and IPD-behavior. Methods. We conducted a standardized systematic review procedure, including the formal search method be adopted to seek out any type of studies related to IPD and brain, then devised them into categories to make a systematic review. Results. 17 articles met the inclusion criteria of the review, 5 event-related potential (ERP) studies measured the amplitude and latencies of ERPs, and 12 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies provided the neural activation during IPD tasks. In addition, the passive IPD experimental paradigm is the main experimental paradigm for exploring neural activity in IPD cognition, with the parietal lobe, motor areas, prefrontal lobe, and amygdala being the main brain areas involved. Functional connections between the identified brain regions were found and have a moderate correlation with IPD behavior. Conclusions. This review provides the neural activity of the IPD interaction process. However, the insufficient ecological validity of IPD tasks and ignore the initiative of people in IPD interaction. Therefore, there is a large research space on this topic. The work of the current systematic review contributed to linking the external performance and inner neural activities of IPD.

The Peripersonal Space in a social world

The PeriPersonal Space (PPS) has been defined as the space surrounding the body, where physical interactions with elements of the environment take place. As our world is social in nature, recent evidence revealed the complex modulation of social factors onto PPS representation. In light of the growing interest in the field, in this review we take a close look at the experimental approaches undertaken to assess the impact of social factors onto PPS representation. Our social world also influences the personal space (PS), a concept stemming from social psychology, defined as the space we keep between us and others to avoid discomfort. Here we analytically compare PPS and PS with the aim of understanding if and how they relate to each other. At the behavioral level, the multiplicity of experimental methodologies, whether well-established or novel, lead to somewhat divergent results and interpretations. Beyond behavior, we review physiological and neural signatures of PPS representation to discuss how interoceptive signals could contribute to PPS representation, as well as how these internal signals could shape the neural responses of PPS representation. In particular, by merging exteroceptive information from the environment and internal signals that come from the body, PPS may promote an integrated representation of the self, as distinct from the environment and the others. We put forward that integrating internal and external signals in the brain for perception of proximal environmental stimuli may also provide us with a better understanding of the processes at play during social interactions. Adopting such an integrative stance may offer novel insights about PPS representation in a social world. Finally, we discuss possible links between PPS research and social cognition, a link that may contribute to the understanding of intentions and feelings of others around us and promote appropriate social interactions.

The Body across the Lifespan: On the Relation between Interoceptive Sensibility and High-Order Body Representations

Background: Interoceptive information plays a pivotal role in building higher-order cognitive body representations (BR) that neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence classifies as action-oriented (i.e., body schema) or non-action-oriented (i.e., visuo-spatial body map). This study aimed to explore the development of BR, considering the association with the interoceptive sensibility throughout the lifespan. Methods: Two hundred thirty-nine healthy participants divided into five age groups (7 to 8 years; 9 to 10 years; 18 to 40 years; 41 to 60 years; over 60 years) completed a self-report measure of interoceptive sensibility (the Self-Awareness Questionnaire; SAQ) and were given tasks assessing the two BR (action-oriented: hand laterality task; non-action-oriented: frontal body evocation task). Results: Both children (7–8 and 9–10 years) and older adults (over 60 years) performed worse than young (18–40 years) and middle-aged adults (41–60 years) in action- and non-action-oriented BR tasks. Moderation analyses showed that the SAQ score significantly moderated the relationship between age and action-oriented BR. Conclusions: The current results are consistent with inverted U-shaped developmental curves for action- and non-action-oriented BR. As an innovative aspect, the ability to mentally represent one’s own body parts in diverse states could be negatively affected by higher interoceptive sensibility levels in childhood and late adulthood.