Naturalistic Hyperscanning with Wearable Magnetoencephalography

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Human cognitive function evolves through complex social interactions, forming our behavioral basis.
• Social capacities are vulnerable to disease and injury, but their neural underpinnings are poorly understood.
• Hyperscanning, using functional neuroimaging, assesses simultaneous brain activity in two individuals to study social interaction's neural basis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To overcome limitations of current hyperscanning technologies (poor performance and unnatural settings).
• To introduce and demonstrate hyperscanning using wearable magnetoencephalography (MEG) based on optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs).
• To investigate the neural correlates of social interaction in a naturalistic setting.

Main Methods:

• Simultaneous brain activity measurement in two subjects using wearable OPM-MEG.
• Subjects performed interactive tasks, including a touching task and a ball game.
• Analysis focused on delineating sensorimotor brain activity and correlating neuronal oscillations between subjects despite subject motion.

Main Results:

• Wearable OPM-MEG successfully delineated sensorimotor brain activity during simultaneous scanning of two subjects.
• Correlation of neuronal oscillation envelopes between subjects was demonstrated.
• The system accommodated large and unpredictable subject motion, maintaining high-fidelity data acquisition.

Conclusions:

• Wearable OPM-MEG offers a high-fidelity, naturalistic approach to hyperscanning, overcoming limitations of existing methods.
• This technology provides significant potential for investigating the neural basis of social interaction.
• Future research can explore social cognition and its neural underpinnings in more ecologically valid settings.