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Synchrony of mind and body are distinct in mother-child dyads

Vanessa Reindl, Sam Wass, Victoria Leong, Wolfgang Scharke, Sandra Wistuba, Christina Lisa Wirth, Kerstin Konrad, Christian Gerloff
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.21.432077
Vanessa Reindl
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
2JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany
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  • For correspondence: vreindl@ukaachen.de
Sam Wass
3Division of Psychology, University of East London, London E16 2RD, United Kingdom
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Victoria Leong
4Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
5Division of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore S639818, Republic of Singapore
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Wolfgang Scharke
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
6Chair of Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University
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Sandra Wistuba
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
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Christina Lisa Wirth
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
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Kerstin Konrad
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
2JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany
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Christian Gerloff
1Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
2JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany
7Chair II of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
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Abstract

Hyperscanning studies have begun to unravel the brain mechanisms underlying social interaction, indicating a functional role for interpersonal neural synchronization (INS), yet the mechanisms that drive INS are poorly understood. While interpersonal synchrony is considered a multimodal phenomenon, it is not clear how different biological and behavioral synchrony markers are related to each other. The current study, thus, addresses whether INS is functionally-distinct from synchrony in other systems – specifically the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and motor behavior. To test this, we used a novel methodological approach, based on concurrent functional near-infrared spectroscopy-electrocardiography, recorded while N = 34 mother-child and stranger-child dyads (child mean age 14 years) engaged in cooperative and competitive tasks. Results showed a marked differentiation between neural, ANS and behavioral synchrony. Importantly, only in the neural domain was higher synchrony for mother-child compared to stranger-child dyads observed. Further, ANS and neural synchrony were positively related during competition but not during cooperation. These results suggest that synchrony in different behavioral and biological systems may reflect distinct processes. Mother-child INS may arise due to neural processes related to social affiliation, which go beyond shared arousal and similarities in behavior.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
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-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 21, 2021.
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Synchrony of mind and body are distinct in mother-child dyads
Vanessa Reindl, Sam Wass, Victoria Leong, Wolfgang Scharke, Sandra Wistuba, Christina Lisa Wirth, Kerstin Konrad, Christian Gerloff
bioRxiv 2021.02.21.432077; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.21.432077
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Synchrony of mind and body are distinct in mother-child dyads
Vanessa Reindl, Sam Wass, Victoria Leong, Wolfgang Scharke, Sandra Wistuba, Christina Lisa Wirth, Kerstin Konrad, Christian Gerloff
bioRxiv 2021.02.21.432077; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.21.432077

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