Neuroelectrical hyperscanning measures simultaneous brain activity in humans

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Social Neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding simultaneous brain processes during social interaction is crucial.
• Non-invasive neuroimaging methods are needed to study inter-brain dynamics.
• Previous methods lacked the resolution to capture real-time cooperative brain activity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a methodology for analyzing concurrent brain activity during cooperation using EEG hyperscanning.
• To investigate functional connectivity patterns between interacting individuals.
• To identify specific brain regions involved in cooperative tasks.

Main Methods:

• Collected simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) data from fourteen pairs of subjects playing a card game.
• Applied an extended Granger-causality approach to estimate functional connections between different brains.
• Utilized graph theory to analyze and contrast functional connectivity patterns within cooperating pairs.

Main Results:

• Identified statistically significant functional connectivities between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal areas (Brodmann areas 8) across individuals.
• Demonstrated Granger-sense causal relationships between prefrontal regions (Brodmann areas 8 and 9/46) of one player and the ACC of their partner.
• Confirmed the feasibility of EEG hyperscanning for studying inter-brain functional connectivity.

Conclusions:

• The developed methodology enables the study of simultaneous brain processes during cooperation.
• EEG hyperscanning can reveal statistically significant functional connectivities between interacting brains.
• This approach offers insights into the neural underpinnings of social cooperation and interaction.