Social Neuroscience最新文献

This study investigated the impact of social isolation in Carioca High-Conditioned Freezing (CHF) rats, an animal model of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Animals selected for high (CHF), low trait anxiety (Carioca Low-Conditioned Freezing, CLF), and control rats from randomly bred populations (CTL) were housed in groups or kept isolated in their cages for 14 consecutive days. On the fifteenth day, all animals underwent the Forced Swimming Test (FST), where the latency to immobility was assessed as a depressive-like measure. Under standard grouping conditions, CHF rats showed a shorter latency to immobility in the FST compared to CTL and CLF animals, indicating depressive-like characteristics and possible GAD comorbidity. Social isolation decreased the latency to immobility in CLF and CTL animals, while it paradoxically increased this measure in CHF animals. Therefore, social isolation exerted a depressive-like action in CTL and CLF rats, but had a protective or "antidepressant-like" effect in CHF animals. Since, CHF rats are housed with other animals with high trait anxiety, such protective action induced by social isolation might have been due to the mitigation of what has been referred to as "social stress contagion". These results are discussed regarding the association between depressive-like behaviors and reduced social engagement.

The dissolving of social bonds is disruptive and leads to increased stress responsivity and a strong desire for reunion. The oxytocin (OXT) system is critical for the formation of social attachments, such as pair bonds, and is also involved in social recognition, social memory, and social vigilance. Therefore, long-term changes in the OXT system resulting from cohabitation and pair bonding may contribute to reunion-seeking behavior. Here, we employed social conditioned place preference (SCPP) and the forced swim test (FST) to examine sensitivity to partner-associated contexts and passive stress coping following a period of partner separation. We found that opposite-sex cohabitation led to SCPP formation only in male prairie voles with a strong preference for their partner, and this SCPP was maintained following short-term loss of a pair bonded partner. Furthermore, pair bonded males that were separated from their partner displayed more passive stress-coping than those that were not bonded to their lost partner, suggesting that differences in prairie vole mating tactics (i.e. formation of a bond or not) influence the behavioral response to partner separation. Finally, we found changes in OXTR binding that may reflect variation in loss-related behavioral phenotypes based on different mating strategies.

The transition to parenthood requires parents develop caregiving behaviors, such as the ability to identify their infant's emotions and regulate their own emotional response. Research has identified patterns of neural activation in parenting contexts that are interpreted as socioemotional processing. However, no prior research has directly tested whether mothers' neural responses to their infant's affect are the same as those involved in emotion perception/experience and regulation in other contexts. We employed conjunction analyses to clarify which components of mothers' neural response to viewing their infant's affect are shared with passively viewing and labeling adult affective faces (emotion perception/experience and implicit emotion regulation, respectively) in 24 mothers three months postpartum. Our results support a common neural response to viewing infant and adult affect in regions associated with emotion perception/experience (bilateral hippocampi, amygdalae, thalami, orbitofrontal cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), but no areas of common response to viewing negative infant affect and implicitly regulating negative adult affect outside of the occipital lobe and cerebellum. This study provides corroborating evidence for shared neural patterns being involved in perceiving/experiencing infant and adult affect but not implicit regulation of infant and adult negative affect.

Humans are social creatures, and many tasks in our daily lives are solved together. The two main forms of social interaction in problem solving could be defined as competition and cooperation. In our study, we compared the ERS/ERD when performing a creative task (Alternative Uses Test, AUT) and a control task ("naming the objects from the presented category") under competitive conditions in dyads (22 dyads, m-m, f-f, 18-23 years old) compared to the performance of tasks individually. The number of answers given by subjects under competitive conditions was significantly lower than during the execution of the tasks individually. The solving of the creative task in competition versus individual performance was accompanied by EEG synchronization (9-30 hz) clusters: 140-1220 ms and 900-1780 ms after stimulus presentation; 13.5-30 hz (1800-1980 ms), reflecting the creative thinking mode, and expected cognitive, emotional answers' assessment. The control task under competitive conditions was accompanied by pronounced synchronization of low frequencies in the frontal areas (2-7 hz, 0-1980 ms), due to a greater working memory load; synchronization clusters in broadband (10-30 hz, 100-320 ms, 400-860 ms) and in the beta EEG band (17-30 hz, 1140-1980 ms). The competitive conditions significantly modulated the brain activity underlying creative and non-creative cognitive task performance, and resulted in greater induced EEG synchronization.

We systematically investigated the application of embodied hyperscanning methodologies in social neuroscience research. Hyperscanning enables the simultaneous recording of neurophysiological and physiological signals from multiple participants. We highlight the trend toward integrating Mobile Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI) within the 4E research framework, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of brain, body, and environment. Our analysis revealed a geographic concentration of studies in the Global North, calling for global collaboration and transcultural research to balance the field. The predominant use of Magneto/Electroencephalogram (M/EEG) in these studies suggests a traditional brain-centric perspective in social neuroscience. Future research directions should focus on integrating diverse techniques to capture the dynamic interplay between brain and body functions in real-world contexts. Our review also finds a preference for tasks involving natural settings. Nevertheless, the analysis in hyperscanning studies is often limited to physiological signal synchrony between participants. This suggests a need for more holistic and complex approaches that combine inter-corporeal synchrony with intra-individual measures. We believe that the future of the neuroscience of relationships lies in embracing the complexity of cognition, integrating diverse methods and theories to enrich our grasp of human social behavior in its natural contexts.

Empathy requires the ability to understand another's point of view and is critical for motivating a person to help others. However, little is known about the link between experiences of empathic emotional engagement in close friendships during adolescence and neural correlates of empathy in adulthood. Beginning in 1998, N = 88 participants drawn from a demographically diverse community sample were observed annually from ages 13 to 21 and rated on the amount of emotional engagement displayed toward a close friend during a support task. At approximately age 24, participants underwent functional brain imaging while a partner or stranger was under distress. Contrary to predictions, greater emotional engagement with close friends during adolescence corresponded prospectively with reduced temporal pole activity (a region associated with cognitive empathy and perspective taking) while observing threats directed at others. Results have implications for understanding the neurodevelopmental roots of empathy.

Being touched by others (social-touch) and touching oneself (self-touch) are common nonverbal behaviors in everyday interaction. The commonalities and differences between these two types of touching behavior are of particular interest for conditions when social-touch is substantially restricted such as during the corona pandemic. Neuropsychologically, pleasant social-touch is associated with increased activation in frontal brain regions such as frontopolar, dorsolateral prefrontal (dlPFC), and orbitofrontal cortices (OFC). However, for these regions a deactivation has also been reported. Likewise, for self-touch the findings are controversial. Therefore, the aim of this study is to shed light on the controversial findings and to elucidate the relation between self-touch and social-touch. From 2021 to 2022, in a quasi-naturalistic setting, in forty-six participants brain oxygenation and deoxygenation was examined during social-touch and self-touch in frontal cortices applying functional NearInfraRed Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Social-touch compared to self-touch led to a significantly higher brain deoxygenation in the frontopolar areas and in parts of the dlPFC and OFC. In contrast, brain oxygenation in the PFC was significantly increased during self-touch compared to social-touch. The cerebral activation and deactivation pattern in a quasi-naturalistic setting indicates that self-touch cannot achieve the hedonic effects of social-touch, but it can influence internally self-regulating processes.

As individuals increasingly engage in social interactions through digital mediums, understanding the neuroscientific underpinnings of such exchanges becomes a critical challenge and a valuable opportunity. In line with a second-person neuroscience approach, understanding the forms of interpersonal syntonisation that occur during digital interactions is pivotal for grasping the mechanisms underlying successful collaboration in virtual spaces. The hyperscanning paradigm, involving the simultaneous monitoring of the brains and bodies of multiple interacting individuals, seems to be a powerful tool for unravelling the neural correlates of interpersonal syntonisation in social exchanges. We posit that such approach can now open new windows on interacting brains' responses even to digitally-conveyed social cues, offering insights into how social information is processed in the absence of traditional face-to-face settings. Yet, such paradigm shift raises challenging methodological questions, which should be answered properly to conduct significant and informative hyperscanning investigations. Here, we provide an introduction to core methodological issues dedicated to novices approaching the design of hyperscanning investigations of remote exchanges in natural settings, focusing on the selection of neuroscientific devices, synchronization of data streams, and data analysis approaches. Finally, a methodological checklist for devising robust hyperscanning studies on digital interactions is presented.