Mechanisms of Dynamic Neural Coupling during Face-to-Face Expressions of Emotion

项目总结 对于在人类社会和社会生活中调节自然动态线索的神经机制知之甚少 情感相互作用，尽管这些机制在许多精神和神经疾病中受到损害。 虽然人们普遍认为，面部表情等社交信号带有明显的、但含蓄的情感 和社交线索，这些“实时”途径还没有用双脑神经成像技术进行研究。 这种未得到满足的需求在很大程度上是由于技术限制，无法对两个或更多的人进行神经成像 在自然互动的情况下。我们克服了这一技术障碍，最近在一种 新兴的人脑成像技术--功能性近红外光谱(FNIRS)。这种非侵入性 该技术基于通过吸收变化测量的血流动力学信号来检测活跃的神经组织 与氧合血红蛋白和脱氧血红蛋白相关的光谱。因为探测器和发射器都是表面的 安装在磁头上，没有高磁场，它们对磁头移动相对不敏感，因此 成功地应用于并元实验。这项建议的重点是全面了解 在真实的人际互动中，动态的跨脑神经耦合的基础机制。 跨脑神经耦合被定义为两个信号的时间模式之间的相关性 大脑。已经提出，这些匹配模式代表共享的神经过程，包括动态的 信息交流。然而，共享信息和时间共振的基本假设 特定的脑对脑区域之间的模式还没有得到测试。我们率先使用以下方法对这些假设进行了检验 眼神接触作为共享信息的度量，并预测两者之间的动态神经耦合 随着眼神接触事件数量的增加，大脑也会随之增加。面部表情的模仿也是 这是一种衡量情绪传染程度以及大脑之间共享信息的指标。我们进一步检验了这一假设 这种神经耦合将随着模仿水平的提高而增加，这也是由于共享信息确认 假设神经耦合代表两个大脑之间共享的信息将提供一个 理解动态相互作用机制的独特进展。这两种方法都有变种 以检验内容和共享信息可能 影响动态耦合机制。这些研究的结果有望为以下方面开辟新的方向 研究人与人之间活生生的和动态的相互作用，并为一般的 面对面互动模型的框架。一个长期的目标是理解神经基础 在临床相关和现实世界的情况下出现的情感障碍。

PROJECT SUMMARY Little is known about the neural mechanisms that regulate natural dynamic cues during human social and emotional interactions, although these mechanisms are impaired in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Although it is widely understood that social signals such as facial expressions carry salient, but implicit, emotional and social cues, these “real-time” pathways have not been investigated with dual-brain neuroimaging techniques. This unmet need is largely due to technological limitations that prevent neuroimaging of two or more individuals during natural interactive situations. We overcome this technical “roadblock” with recent advances in an emerging human brain imaging technology, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This non-invasive technique detects active neural tissue based on hemodynamic signals measured by variations in the absorption spectra associated with oxyhemoglobin and de-oxyhemoglobin. Because detectors and emitters are surface mounted on the head, absent a high magnetic field, they are relatively insensitive to head movement and thus successfully applied to dyadic experiments. The focus of this proposal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that underlie dynamic cross-brain neural coupling during real interpersonal interactions. Cross-brain neural coupling is defined as the correlation between the temporal patterns of the signals of two brains. It has been proposed that these matched patterns represent shared neural processes including dynamic exchanges of information. However, the basic assumptions of shared information and temporal resonance patterns between specific brain-to-brain regions has not been tested. We pioneer tests of these hypothesis using eye-to-eye contact as a metric of shared information and predict that dynamic neural coupling between the two brains will increase with increasing numbers of eye-to-eye contact events. Mimicry of facial expressions is also a metric of emotional contagion as well as shared information between brains. We further test the hypothesis that neural coupling will increase with the level of mimicry also by virtue of the shared information Confirmation of the hypothesis that neural coupling represents shared information between the two brains would provide a singular advance for understanding mechanisms for dynamic interactions. Both approaches include variations of emotive expressions to test the additional hypothesis that content as well as shared information might influence dynamic coupling mechanisms. Findings from these studies are expected to open a new direction for the study of live and dynamic interactions between individuals, and provide foundational components to a general framework for models of face-to-face interactions. A long-term goal is to understand the neural underpinnings of affective disorders as they present in clinically-relevant and real-world situations.