The coordination dynamics of social neuromarkers

Abstract

Social behavior is a complex integrative function that entails many aspects of the brain’s sensory, cognitive, emotional and movement capacities. Its neural processes are seldom simultaneous but occur according to precise spatiotemporal choreographies, manifested by the coordination of their oscillations within and between brains. Methods with good temporal resolution can help to identify so-called “neuromarkers” of social function and aid in disentangling the dynamical architecture of social brains. In our ongoing research, we have used dual-electroencephalography (EEG) to study neuromarker dynamics during synchronic interactions in which pairs of subjects coordinate behavior spontaneously and intentionally (social coordination) and during diachronic transactions that require subjects to perceive or behave in turn (action observation, delayed imitation). In this paper, after outlining our dynamical approach to the neurophysiological basis of social behavior, we examine commonalities and differences in the neuromarkers that are recruited for both kinds of tasks. We find the neuromarker landscape to be task-specific: synchronic paradigms of social coordination reveal medial mu, alpha and the phi complex as contributing neuromarkers. Diachronic tasks recruit alpha as well, in addition to lateral mu rhythms and the newly discovered nu and kappa rhythms whose functional significance is still unclear. Social coordination, observation, and delayed imitation share commonality of context: in each of our experiments, subjects exchanged information through visual perception and moved in similar ways. Nonetheless, there was little overlap between their neuromarkers, a result that hints strongly of task-specific neural mechanisms for social behavior. The only neuromarker that transcended both synchronic and diachronic social behaviors was the ubiquitous alpha rhythm, which appears to be a key signature of visually-mediated social behaviors. The present paper is both an entry point and a challenge: much work remains to determine the nature and scope of recruitment of other neuromarkers, and to create theoretical models of their within- and between-brain dynamics during social interaction.

Healthcare Teams Neurodynamically Reorganize When Resolving Uncertainty

“…For instance, during spontaneous coordination, the mu medial rhythm is synchronized (i.e., high power), but becomes suppressed or desynchronized (i.e., low power) during social interaction [8]. Similarly, synchronized (i.e., high power) alpha may provide a mechanism for selective attention while desynchronized alpha may promote working memory formation [19].…”

“…It is not surprising that neurophysiologic processes underlie these interactions, and, while research is revealing the microscale details of social dynamics [8], the impact of these studies on understanding how to assemble, train and evaluate teams has been minor. This is partially due to the time span of neural involvements in team activities, ranging from the millisecond neurodynamic oscillations in individual brains to the observed performance behaviors in the overall team that occur over hours/days.…”

Neurociência social: novas abordagens para a gestão das relações públicas e das comunicações

“…Neuromarkers are distinct patterns of activation in the brain during various social behaviours. By observing the engagement and disengagement of different brain regions, researchers seek to tease out specific patterns associated with specific functions (Tognoli & Kelso, 2013). The goal is to eventually map out the dynamic brain patterns to better understand how the brain responses to stimuli and how these responses manifest in observable behaviour.…”

“…The goal is to eventually map out the dynamic brain patterns to better understand how the brain responses to stimuli and how these responses manifest in observable behaviour. However, mapping neural patterns is extremely complicated because different stimuli can elicit the same neural patterns and different neural patterns can produce similar behaviours (Tognoli & Kelso, 2013). Complicated social behaviours often involve many cognitive processes that share considerable overlap in neural activity (Ferebee & Davis, 2012).…”

On the Self-Organizing Origins of Agency

“…Phase transitions are the simplest expression of self-organization in the human brain [13,14,53,60,99]. More and more evidence is accruing that the brain is a veritable geography of improvised rhythms [100][101][102][103][104] that are coupled together in various, often quite subtle ways for particular functions. Over the last 20 years it has become apparent that neural synchrony is only one manifestation of the brain's self-organizing coordination dynamics.…”