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Measuring speaker-listener neural coupling with functional near infrared spectroscopy

Yichuan Liu, Elise A. Piazza, Erez Simony, Patricia A. Shewokis, Banu Onaral, Uri Hasson, Hasan Ayaz
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/081166
Yichuan Liu
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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Elise A. Piazza
2Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Erez Simony
2Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Patricia A. Shewokis
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
4Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
5Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Banu Onaral
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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Uri Hasson
2Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
5Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Hasan Ayaz
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
6Department of Family and Community Health, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
7Division of General Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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  • For correspondence: hasan.ayaz@drexel.edu
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Abstract

The present study investigates brain-to-brain coupling, defined as inter-subject correlations in the hemodynamic response, during natural verbal communication. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record brain activity of speakers telling stories and listeners comprehending audio recordings of these stories. Listeners’ brain activity was correlated with speakers’ with a delay. This between-brain correlation disappeared when verbal communication failed. We further compared the fNIRS and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) recordings of listeners comprehending the same story and found a relationship between the fNIRS oxygenated-hemoglobin concentration changes and the fMRI BOLD in brain areas associated with speech comprehension. This correlation between fNIRS and fMRI was only present when data from the same story were compared between the two modalities and vanished when data from different stories were compared; this cross-modality consistency further highlights the reliability of the spatiotemporal brain activation pattern as a measure of story comprehension. Our findings suggest that fNIRS is a powerful tool for investigating brain-to-brain coupling during verbal communication. As fNIRS sensors are relatively low-cost and can even be built into wireless, portable, battery-operated systems, these results highlight the potential of broad utilization of this approach in everyday settings for augmenting communication and interaction.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 16, 2016.
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Measuring speaker-listener neural coupling with functional near infrared spectroscopy
Yichuan Liu, Elise A. Piazza, Erez Simony, Patricia A. Shewokis, Banu Onaral, Uri Hasson, Hasan Ayaz
bioRxiv 081166; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/081166
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Measuring speaker-listener neural coupling with functional near infrared spectroscopy
Yichuan Liu, Elise A. Piazza, Erez Simony, Patricia A. Shewokis, Banu Onaral, Uri Hasson, Hasan Ayaz
bioRxiv 081166; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/081166

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