Interbrain dynamical functions for anticipating synchronisation under mutual interactions

"How can we communicate with other members of society, synchronise our motion in real-time despite the time-delay in the sensory-motor systems? Crucial to a sense of communication is the ability to entrain perceptually with other members of society, i.e., to be able to follow, to lead, and anticipate others to synchronise their motion. However, the reorganisation of the brain activity under real-time coordinated motion has never been investigated in terms of simultaneous scanning/analysis of two brains. The aim of this project is to reveal neurological foundations and dynamical functions of two human brains for anticipatory synchronisation during a coordinated activity.

For social animals, moving bodies together in harmony plays an important role to facilitate the social interactions. In humans, such coordinated actions are common in group activities such as playing music and dancing. In the evolutionary process, many social interactions should rely on synchronisation of motion to ground the mutual information exchange in the closed loop of brain and body. To coordinate one’s own motion in harmony with a partner’s motion, anticipating the motion at the next moment is crucial to overcome a substantial time delay between the perception and the actuation of the body motion. In evolutionary sense, the mirror-neuron system, the neuronal population which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another, should facilitate the higher cognition such as language acquisition, interpersonal coordination, and social perception.

However, how the mirror neuron system functions under realtime interactions with another mirror-neuron system has not been revealed. In this proposed project, the novel framework of the experimental set-up is that it can take account of dynamical aspects of two brains influencing each other in real-time, i.e., simultaneously scanning the two brains when the pair participants are under cooperative task.
Aim: Based on the novel experimental paradigm of mutual tracking and simultaneous EEG measurement, this project will reveal the neuronal foundation for mutual anticipating synchronisation, using the interdisciplinary approach in neuroscience and nonlinear physics.

The project will be hosted by the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading. The University of Reading is one of the UK’s 20 most research-intensive universities and among the top 200 universities in the world. Achievements include the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement (1989) and the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education (1998, 2006 and 2009). This project will take place in the Brain Embodiment Lab within Biomedical Engineering Section of the School of Biological Sciences (SBS), which has a strong reputation for its innovative research in cybernetics, and biomedical engineering, including Brain Computer Interfaces, animats - robots controlled by cultures of living neuronal cells and cognitive robotics systems.

For informal inquiries please contact Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi ([Email Address Removed])
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