PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - E. R. Palser
AU  - J. Glass
AU  - A. Fotopoulou
AU  - J. M. Kilner
TI  - Relationship between cardiac cycle and the timing of actions during action execution and observation
AID  - 10.1101/585414
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 585414
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/21/585414.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/21/585414.full
AB  - Previous research suggests that there may be a relationship between the timing of motor events and phases of the cardiac cycle. However, this relationship has thus far only been researched using simple isolated movements such as key-presses in reaction-time tasks and only in a single subject acting alone. Here, we investigated how the cardiac cycle relates to ongoing self-paced movements in both action execution and observation using a novel dyadic paradigm. We recorded electrocardiography (ECG) in 26 subjects who formed 13 dyads containing an action executioner and observer as they performed a self-paced sequence of movements. We demonstrated that heartbeats are timed to movements during both action execution and observation. Specifically, movements were more likely to culminate between heartbeats than simultaneously with the heartbeat. The same pattern was observed for action observation, with the observer’s heartbeats occurring off-phase with movement culmination. These findings demonstrate that there is synchronicity between an action executioner’s cardiac cycle and the timing of their movements, and that the same relationship is mirrored in an observer. This suggests that interpersonal synchronicity may be caused by the mirroring of a phasic relationship between movement and the heart.