RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Synchrony of mind and body are distinct in mother-child dyads
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.02.21.432077
DO 10.1101/2021.02.21.432077
A1 Vanessa Reindl
A1 Sam Wass
A1 Victoria Leong
A1 Wolfgang Scharke
A1 Sandra Wistuba
A1 Christina Lisa Wirth
A1 Kerstin Konrad
A1 Christian Gerloff
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/21/2021.02.21.432077.abstract
AB 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 StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.