Relational Neuroscience studies inter-brain dynamics, using hyperscanning to analyse simultaneous brain activity and understand human social connections.
Authors
Sara De Felice, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Tarachand, Assistant Professor, Jindal Institute of Behavioural Sciences, O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana, Sonipat, India; Department of Clinical Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
Ilona Croy, Department of Clinical Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany; German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), Site Jena-Magdeburg-Halle, Germany
Veronika Engert, German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), Site Jena-Magdeburg-Halle, Germany; Institute of Psychosocial Medicine, Psychotherapy and Psychooncology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany; Center for Intervention and Research on adaptive and maladaptive brain Circuits underlying mental health (C-I-R-C), Jena-Magdeburg-Halle, Jena, Germany
Pavel Goldstein, Integrative Pain Laboratory, School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Clay B. Holroyd, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Peter Kirsch, Department of Clinical Psychology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Institute of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Germany; German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), Site Mannheim-Heidelberg-Ulm, Germany
Sören Krach, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
Yina Ma, State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
Dirk Scheele, Department of Social Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany; Research Center One Health Ruhr of the University Alliance Ruhr, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
Matthias Schurz, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Sport Science, and Digital Science Center (DiSC), University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Stefan R. Schweinberger, Department of General Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany; German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), Site Jena-Magdeburg-Halle, Germany
Stefanie Hoehl, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
Pascal Vrticka, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany; Centre for Brain Science, Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom
Summary
Humans are highly social, typically without this ability requiring noticeable efforts. Yet, such social fluency poses challenges both for the human brain to compute and for scientists to study. Over the last few decades, neuroscientific research of human sociality has witnessed a shift in focus from single-brain analysis to complex dynamics occurring across several brains, posing questions about what these dynamics mean and how they relate to multifaceted behavioural models.
We propose the term ‘Relational Neuroscience’ to collate the interdisciplinary research field devoted to modelling the inter-brain dynamics subserving human connections, spanning from real-time joint experiences to long-term social bonds. Hyperscanning, i.e., simultaneously measuring brain activity from multiple individuals, has proven to be a highly promising technique to investigate inter-brain dynamics. Here, we discuss how hyperscanning can help investigate questions within the field of Relational Neuroscience, considering a variety of subfields, including cooperative interactions in dyads and groups, empathy, attachment and bonding, and developmental neuroscience.
While presenting Relational Neuroscience in the light of hyperscanning, our discussion also takes into account behaviour, physiology and endocrinology to properly interpret inter-brain dynamics within social contexts. We consider the strengths but also the limitations and caveats of hyperscanning to answer questions about interacting people. The aim is to provide an integrative framework for future work to build better theories across a variety of contexts and research subfields to model human sociality.
Published in: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
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