- Human Genetics and Cognitive Functions Laboratory
Pasteur institute, 25 rue du docteur Roux
75015 Paris, France
Guillaume Dumas
Institut Pasteur de Paris, Neuroscience, Faculty Member
- Dynamical Systems, Hyperscanning, Epistemology, Neuroscience, Mathematics, Neuroimaging, and 35 moreNonlinear dynamics, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Coordination Dynamics, Complexity Theory, Information Visualization, Enactivism, Distributed Cognition, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Physics, Enaction (Psychology), Biosemiotics, Interpersonal Communication, Language and Social Interaction, Embodied and Distributed Cognition, Graph Theory, Social Cognition, Social Neuroscience, Social Interaction, Evolutionary Dynamics in Brains generating Thought, Neurofeedback, Brain Computer Interaction, Schizophrenia, Neurophenomenology, Statistics, Coordination, Dual EEG, Social Psychology, Research Methodology, Consciousness, Synchrony, Communication and Imitation, Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Cognitive Neuropsychologyedit
- Follow me on Twitter with @introspection ! My interdisciplinary project focuses on the embodied and reciprocal nat... moreFollow me on Twitter with @introspection !
My interdisciplinary project focuses on the embodied and reciprocal nature of human interactions that encompasses neural, behavioral and social levels of analysis. It seeks new conceptual and methodological approaches towards a better understanding of multiscale coordination dynamics.edit
Background: There is no consensus in the literature concerning the presence of abnormal alpha wave profiles in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This may be due to phenotypic heterogeneity among patients as well as the limited... more
Background: There is no consensus in the literature concerning the presence of abnormal alpha wave profiles in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This may be due to phenotypic heterogeneity among patients as well as the limited sample sizes utilized. Here we present our results of alpha wave profile analysis based on a sample larger than most of those in the field, performed using a robust processing pipeline.
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This article analyzes whether psychiatric disorders can be considered different from non-psychiatric disorders on a nosologic or semiologic point of view. The supposed difference between psychiatric and non-psychiatric disorders relates... more
This article analyzes whether psychiatric disorders can be considered different from non-psychiatric disorders on a nosologic or semiologic point of view. The supposed difference between psychiatric and non-psychiatric disorders relates to the fact that the individuation of psychiatric disorders seems more complex than for non-psychiatric disorders. This individuation process can be related to nosologic and semiologic considerations. The first part of the article analyzes whether the ways of constructing classifications of psychiatric disorders are different than for non-psychiatric disorders. The ways of establishing the boundaries between the normal and the pathologic, and of classifying the signs and symptoms in different categories of disorder, are analyzed. Rather than highlighting the specificity of psychiatric disorders, nosologic investigation reveals conceptual notions that apply to the entire field of medicine when we seek to establish the boundaries between the normal and the pathologic and between different disorders. Psychiatry is thus very important in medicine because it exemplifies the inherent problem of the construction of cognitive schemes imposed on clinical and scientific medical information to delineate a classification of disorders and increase its comprehensibility and utility. The second part of this article assesses whether the clinical manifestations of psychiatric disorders (semiology) are specific to the point that they are entities that are different from non-psychiatric disorders. The attribution of clinical manifestations in the different classifications (Research Diagnostic Criteria, Diagnostic Statistic Manual, Research Domain Criteria) is analyzed. Then the two principal models on signs and symptoms, i.e. the latent variable model and the causal network model, are assessed. Unlike nosologic investigation, semiologic analysis is able to reveal specific psychiatric features in a patient. The challenge, therefore, is to better define and classify signs and symptoms in psychiatry based on a dual and mutually interactive biological and psychological perspective, and to incorporate semiologic psychiatry into an integrative, multilevel and multisystem brain and cognitive approach.
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The mechanisms underlying analgesia related to social touch are not clear. While recent research highlights the role of the empathy of the observer to pain relief in the target, the contribution of social interaction to analgesia is... more
The mechanisms underlying analgesia related to social touch are not clear. While recent research highlights the role of the empathy of the observer to pain relief in the target, the contribution of social interaction to analgesia is unknown. The current study examines brain-to-brain coupling during pain with interpersonal touch and tests the involvement of interbrain synchrony in pain alleviation. Romantic partners were assigned the roles of target (pain receiver) and observer (pain observer) under pain–no-pain and touch–no-touch conditions concurrent with EEG recording. Brain-to-brain coupling in alpha–mu band (8–12 Hz) was estimated by a three-step multilevel analysis procedure based on running window circular correlation coefficient and post hoc power of the findings was calculated using simulations. Our findings indicate that hand-holding during pain administration increases brain-to-brain coupling in a network that mainly involves the central regions of the pain target and the right hemisphere of the pain observer. Moreover, brain-to-brain coupling in this network was found to correlate with analgesia magnitude and observer’s empathic accuracy. These findings indicate that brain-to-brain coupling may be involved in touch-related analgesia.
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Technology is increasingly shaping our social structures and is becoming a driving force in altering human biology. Besides, human activities already proved to have a significant impact on the Earth system which in turn generates complex... more
Technology is increasingly shaping our social structures and is becoming a driving force in altering human biology. Besides, human activities already proved to have a significant impact on the Earth system which in turn generates complex feedback loops between social and ecological systems. Furthermore, since our species evolved relatively fast from small groups of hunter-gatherers to large and technology-intensive urban agglomerations, it is not a surprise that the major institutions of human society are no longer fit to cope with the present complexity. In this note we draw foundational parallelisms between neurophysiological systems and ICT-enabled social systems, discussing how frameworks rooted in biology and physics could provide heuristic value in the design of evolutionary systems relevant to politics and economics. In this regard we highlight how the governance of emerging technology (i.e. nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science), and the one of climate change both presently confront us with a number of connected challenges. In particular: historically high level of inequality; the coexistence of growing multipolar cultural systems in an unprecedentedly connected world; the unlikely reaching of the institutional agreements required to deviate abnormal trajectories of development. We argue that wise general solutions to such interrelated issues should embed the deep understanding of how to elicit mutual incentives in the socioeconomic subsystems of Earth system in order to jointly concur to a global utility function (e.g. avoiding the reach of planetary boundaries and widespread social unrest). We leave some open questions on how techno-social systems can effectively learn and adapt with respect to our understanding of geopolitical complexity.
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... Jacqueline Nadel et son équipe du Centre Emotion à l'hôpital de la Salpêtrière ont étudié ce phénomène chez le bébé au ... méthodes non linéaires telles que la synchronisation de phase entre deux signaux dans des bandes de... more
... Jacqueline Nadel et son équipe du Centre Emotion à l'hôpital de la Salpêtrière ont étudié ce phénomène chez le bébé au ... méthodes non linéaires telles que la synchronisation de phase entre deux signaux dans des bandes de fréquence spécifiques (Lachaux, Rodriguez et al. ...
Emotion and motion, though seldom studied in tandem, are complementary aspects of social experience. This study investigates variations in emotional responses during movement coordination between a human and a Virtual Partner (VP), an... more
Emotion and motion, though seldom studied in tandem, are complementary aspects of social experience. This study investigates variations in emotional responses during movement coordination between a human and a Virtual Partner (VP), an agent whose virtual finger movements are driven by the Haken-Kelso-Bunz (HKB) equations of Coordination Dynamics. Twenty-one subjects were instructed to coordinate finger movements with the VP in either inphase or antiphase patterns. By adjusting model parameters, we manipulated the 'intention' of VP as cooperative or competitive with the human's instructed goal. Skin potential responses (SPR) were recorded to quantify the intensity of emotional response. At the end of each trial, subjects rated the VP's intention and whether they thought their partner was another human being or a machine. We found greater emotional responses when subjects reported that their partner was human and when coordination was stable. That emotional responses are strongly influenced by dynamic features of the VP's behavior, has implications for mental health, brain disorders and the design of socially cooperative machines.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Emotion, Artificial Intelligence, Cooperation (Evolutionary Psychology), Embodied Cognition, and 11 moreSocial Interaction, Computational Modelling, Human-machine Systems, Emotions (Social Psychology), Human-Robot Interaction, Social emotions, Cooperation, Coordination, Skin conductance, Avatars, and Coordination Dynamics
Definitions of meta-cognition typically have two components: (1) knowledge about one's own cognitive functioning; and, (2) control over one's own cognitive activities. Since Flavell and his colleagues provided the empirical foundation on... more
Definitions of meta-cognition typically have two components: (1) knowledge about one's own cognitive functioning; and, (2) control over one's own cognitive activities. Since Flavell and his colleagues provided the empirical foundation on which to build studies of meta-cognition and the autonoetic (self) knowledge required for effective learning, the intervening years have seen the extensive dissemination of theoretical and empirical research on meta-cognition, which now encompasses a variety of issues and domains including educational psychology and neuroscience. Nevertheless, the psychological and neural underpinnings of meta-cognitive predictions and reflections that determine subsequent regulation of task performance remain ill understood. This article provides an outline of meta-cognition in the science of education with evidence drawn from neuroimaging, psycho-physiological, and psychological literature. We will rigorously explore research that addresses the pivotal role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in controlling the meta-cognitive processes that underpin the self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies learners employ to regulate task performance. The article delineates what those strategies are, and how the learning environment can facilitate or frustrate strategy use by influencing learners' self-efficacy.
The Virtual Teacher paradigm, a version of the Human Dynamic Clamp (HDC), is introduced into studies of learning patterns of inter-personal coordination. Combining mathematical modeling and experimentation, we investigate how the HDC may... more
The Virtual Teacher paradigm, a version of the Human Dynamic Clamp (HDC), is introduced into studies of learning patterns of inter-personal coordination. Combining mathematical modeling and experimentation, we investigate how the HDC may be used as a Virtual Teacher (VT) to help humans co-produce and internalize new inter-personal coordination pattern(s). Human learners produced rhythmic finger movements whilst observing a computer-driven avatar, animated by dynamic equations stemming from the well-established Haken-Kelso-Bunz (1985) and Schöner-Kelso (1988) models of coordination. We demonstrate that the VT is successful in shifting the pattern co-produced by the VT-human system toward any value (Experiment 1) and that the VT can help humans learn unstable relative phasing patterns (Experiment 2). Using transfer entropy, we find that information flow from one partner to the other increases when VT-human coordination loses stability. This suggests that variable joint performance may actually facilitate interaction, and in the long run learning. VT appears to be a promising tool for exploring basic learning processes involved in social interaction, unraveling the dynamics of information flow between interacting partners, and providing possible rehabilitation opportunities.
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Semaphorins are a large family of secreted and membrane-associated proteins necessary for wiring of the brain. Semaphorin 5A (SEMA5A) acts as a bifunctional guidance cue, exerting both attractive and inhibitory effects on developing... more
Semaphorins are a large family of secreted and membrane-associated proteins necessary for wiring of the brain. Semaphorin 5A (SEMA5A) acts as a bifunctional guidance cue, exerting both attractive and inhibitory effects on developing axons. Previous studies have suggested that SEMA5A could be a susceptibility gene for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We first identified a de novo translocation t(5;22)(p15.3;q11.21) in a patient with ASD and intellectual disability (ID). At the translocation breakpoint on chromosome 5, we observed a 861-kb deletion encompassing the end of the SEMA5A gene. We delineated the breakpoint by NGS and observed that no gene was disrupted on chromosome 22. We then used Sanger sequencing to search for deleterious variants affecting SEMA5A in 142 patients with ASD. We also identified two independent heterozygous variants located in a conserved functional domain of the protein. Both variants were maternally inherited and predicted as deleterious. Our genetic screens identified the first case of a de novo SEMA5A microdeletion in a patient with ASD and ID. Although our study alone cannot formally associate SEMA5A with susceptibility to ASD, it provides additional evidence that Semaphorin dysfunction could lead to ASD and ID. Further studies on Semaphorins are warranted to better understand the role of this family of genes in susceptibility to neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Many of the instructional practices that have been advanced as intrinsically motivating are inherent in socio-constructivist learning environments. There is now emerging scientific evidence to explain why interactive learning environments... more
Many of the instructional practices that have been advanced as intrinsically motivating are inherent in socio-constructivist learning environments. There is now emerging scientific evidence to explain why interactive learning environments promote the intrinsic motivation to learn. The "two-body" and "second person" approaches have begun to explore the "dark matter" of social neuroscience: the intra- and inter-individual brain dynamics during social interaction. Moreover, studies indicate that when young learners are given expanded opportunities to actively and equitably participate in collaborative learning activities they experienced feelings of well-being, contentment or even excitement. Neuroscience starts demonstrating how this naturally rewarding aspect is strongly associated with the implication of the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway during social interaction. The production of dopamine reinforces the desire to continue the interaction, and heightens feelings of anticipation for future peer-learning activities. Here we review how cooperative learning and problem-solving interactions can bring about the “intrinsic” motivation to learn. Overall, the reported theoretical arguments and neuroscientific results have clear implications for school and organization approaches and support social constructivist perspectives.
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Social neuroscience shows a growing interest for the study of social interaction. Investigating its neural underpinnings has been greatly facilitated through the development of hyperscanning, a neuroimaging technique allowing to record... more
Social neuroscience shows a growing interest for the study of social interaction. Investigating its neural underpinnings has been greatly facilitated through the development of hyperscanning, a neuroimaging technique allowing to record simultaneously the brain activity of multiple humans engaged in a social exchange. However, the analysis of spontaneous social interaction requires the indexing of the ongoing behavior. Since spontaneous exchanges are intrinsically unconstrained, only a manual indexing by frame-by-frame analysis has been used so far. Here we present an automatic measure of imitation during spontaneous social interaction. Participants gestures are caracterized with Bag of Words and 1-class SVM models. Then a measure of imitation is derived from the likelihood ratio between these models. We apply this method to hyperscanning EEG recordings of spontaneous imitation of bimanual hand movements. The comparison with manual indexing validates the method at both behavioral and neural levels, demonstrating its ability to discriminate significantly the periods of imitation and non-imitation during social interaction.
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Two aspects of the EEG literature lead us to revisit mu suppression in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). First and despite the fact that the mu rhythm can be functionally segregated in two discrete sub-bands, 8–10 Hz and 10–12/13 Hz,... more
Two aspects of the EEG literature lead us to revisit mu suppression in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). First and despite the fact that the mu rhythm can be functionally segregated in two discrete sub-bands, 8–10 Hz and 10–12/13 Hz, mu-suppression in ASD has been analyzed as a homogeneous phenomenon covering the 8–13 Hz frequency. Second and although alpha-like activity is usually found across the entire scalp, ASD studies of action observation have focused on the central electrodes (C3/C4). The present study was aimed at testing on the whole brain the hypothesis of a functional dissociation of mu and alpha responses to the observation of human actions in ASD according to bandwidths. Electroencephalographic (EEG) mu and alpha responses to execution and observation of hand gestures were recorded on the whole scalp in high functioning subjects with ASD and typical subjects. When two bandwidths of the alpha-mu 8–13 Hz were distinguished, a different mu response to observation appeared for subjects with ASD in the upper sub-band over the sensorimotor cortex, whilst the lower sub-band responded similarly in the two groups. Source reconstructions demonstrated that this effect was related to a joint mu-suppression deficit over the occipito-parietal regions and an increase over the frontal regions. These findings suggest peculiarities in top-down response modulation in ASD and question the claim of a global dysfunction of the MNS in autism. This research also advocates for the use of finer grained analyses at both spatial and spectral levels for future directions in neurophysiological accounts of autism.
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Social neuroscience has called for new experimental paradigms aimed toward real-time interactions. A distinctive feature of interactions is mutual information exchange: One member of a pair changes in response to the other while... more
Social neuroscience has called for new experimental paradigms aimed toward real-time interactions. A distinctive feature of interactions is mutual information exchange: One member of a pair changes in response to the other while simultaneously producing actions that alter the other. Combining mathematical and neurophysiological methods, we introduce a paradigm called the human dynamic clamp (HDC), to directly manipulate the interaction or coupling between a human and a surrogate constructed to behave like a human. Inspired by the dynamic clamp used so productively in cellular neuroscience, the HDC allows a person to interact in real time with a virtual partner itself driven by well-established models of coordination dynamics. People coordinate hand movements with the visually observed movements of a virtual hand, the parameters of which depend on input from the subject’s own movements. We demonstrate that HDC can be extended to cover a broad repertoire of human behavior, including rhythmic and discrete movements, adaptation to changes of pacing, and behavioral skill learning as specified by a virtual “teacher.” We propose HDC as a general paradigm, best implemented when empirically verified theoretical or mathematical models have been developed in a particular scientific field. The HDC paradigm is powerful because it provides an opportunity to explore parameter ranges and perturbations that are not easily accessible in ordinary human interactions. The HDC not only enables to test the veracity of theoretical models, it also illuminates features that are not always apparent in real-time human social interactions and the brain correlates thereof.
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Recent debates regarding the primacy of social interaction versus individual cognition appear to be caused by the lack of an integrative account of the multiple scales at play. We suggest that reconciling individual autonomy and dyadic... more
Recent debates regarding the primacy of social interaction versus individual cognition appear to be caused by the lack of an integrative account of the multiple scales at play. We suggest that reconciling individual autonomy and dyadic interactive viewpoints requires the taking into account of different time scales (e.g. development, learning) and levels of organization (e.g. genetic, neural, behavioral, social). We argue that this challenge requires the joint development of tools for two-body and second person neuroscience, along with the theoretical concepts and methods of coordination dynamics and systems biology. Such a research program may be particularly fruitful in deciphering complex socio-developmental diseases that are known to involve alterations on multiple levels.
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Cognition involving others, or social cognition, is often conceptualized as the soli- tary, third-person computation of mental states. Relatively, little attention has been paid to how individuals use their cognitive capacities at the... more
Cognition involving others, or social cognition, is often conceptualized as the soli- tary, third-person computation of mental states. Relatively, little attention has been paid to how individuals use their cognitive capacities at the behavioral and brain levels in social exchanges. We introduce imitation as a valuable model of dynamic social interactive phenomena and describe laboratory procedures for studying it in behavioral and neuroimaging contexts. We review research that reveals behavioral and neural synchronization of individuals engaged in imitation. In the latter case, brain activity is correlated in imitative partners, but the pattern expressed by an individual depends on the individual’s role (i.e., model or imitator). We link these find- ings to theoretical notions about mirroring and mentalizing brain systems and then describe how mirroring and mentalizing support the notion of prospective cognition, even in basic forms of communication such as reciprocal imitation.
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Social networking sites (SNSs) provide researchers with an unprecedented amount of user derived personal information. This wealth of information can be invaluable for research purposes. However, the privacy of the SNS user must be... more
Social networking sites (SNSs) provide researchers with an unprecedented amount of user derived personal information. This wealth of information can be invaluable for research purposes. However, the privacy of the SNS user must be protected from both public and private researchers. New research capabilities raise new ethical concerns. We argue that past research regulation has largely been in reaction to questionable research practices, and therefore new innovations need to be regulated before SNS users’ privacy is irreparably compromised. It is the responsibility of the academic community to start this ethical discourse.
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Neuromodulation therapeutics—as repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and neurofeedback—are valuable tools for psychiatry. Nevertheless, they currently face some limitations: rTMS has confounding effects on neural activation... more
Neuromodulation therapeutics—as repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and neurofeedback—are valuable tools for psychiatry. Nevertheless, they currently face some limitations: rTMS has confounding effects on neural activation patterns, and neurofeedback fails to change neural dynamics in some cases. Here we propose how coupling rTMS and neurofeedback can tackle both issues by adapting neural activations during rTMS and actively guiding individuals during neurofeedback. An algorithmic challenge then consists in designing the proper recording, processing, feedback, and control of unwanted effects. But this new neuromodulation technique also poses an ethical challenge: ensuring treatment occurs within a biopsychosocial model of medicine, while considering both the interaction between the patients and the psychiatrist, and the maintenance of individuals' autonomy. Our solution is the concept of Cyborg psychiatry, which embodies the technique and includes a self-engaged interaction between patients and the neuromodulation device.
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Much evidence suggests that dynamic laws of neurobehavioral coordination are sui generis: they deal with collective properties that are repeatable from one system to another and emerge from microscopic dynamics but may not (even in... more
Much evidence suggests that dynamic laws of neurobehavioral coordination are sui generis: they deal with collective properties that are repeatable from one system to another and emerge from microscopic dynamics but may not (even in principle) be deducible from them. Nevertheless, it is useful to try to understand the relationship between different levels while all the time respecting the autonomy of each. We report a program of research that uses the theoretical concepts of coordination dynamics and quantitative measurements of simple, well-defined experimental model systems to explicitly relate neural and behavioral levels of description in human beings. Our approach is both top-down and bottom-up and aims at ending up in the same place: top-down to derive behavioral patterns from neural fields, and bottom-up to generate neural field patterns from bidirectional coupling between astrocytes and neurons. Much progress can be made by recognizing that the two approaches–reductionism and emergentism–are complementary. A key to understanding is to couch the coordination of very different things–from molecules to thoughts–in the common language of coordination dynamics.
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Since 2002, a new neuroimaging technique called hyperscanning allows to record several participants simultaneously and thus to study social interaction in a reciprocal and spontaneous social context. Meanwhile, neurodynamics and... more
Since 2002, a new neuroimaging technique called hyperscanning allows to record several participants simultaneously and thus to study social interaction in a reciprocal and spontaneous social context. Meanwhile, neurodynamics and sensorimotor theories suggested to understand social interaction in a more holistic approach by considering the two interacting individuals as a single system, and giving equal importance to behavior and brain activity.
This thesis presents the study of pairs of participants recorded simultaneously during spontaneous imitation of the movement of their hands, by a dual-video combined with a hyperscanning-EEG setup. A fine grained video analysis identified the episodes of interactional synchrony and imitation, thus allowing the neurodynamic characterization of various aspects of the interaction, both at the inter- and intra-individual. The first study showed that episodes of interactional synchrony were accompanied by the emergence of inter-brain phase synchronizations in several frequency bands. The second study showed a neural differentiation between self- and other-attribution of action primacy, and found a signature of the co-ownership of the action in both partners during the spontaneous imitation. The third study validated the experimental measurements with biophysical simulations of pairs of human brains. It also showed the effects of anatomical connectivity on intra-individual neural dynamics and the facilitation of the inter-individual sensorimotor coupling.
This thesis presents the study of pairs of participants recorded simultaneously during spontaneous imitation of the movement of their hands, by a dual-video combined with a hyperscanning-EEG setup. A fine grained video analysis identified the episodes of interactional synchrony and imitation, thus allowing the neurodynamic characterization of various aspects of the interaction, both at the inter- and intra-individual. The first study showed that episodes of interactional synchrony were accompanied by the emergence of inter-brain phase synchronizations in several frequency bands. The second study showed a neural differentiation between self- and other-attribution of action primacy, and found a signature of the co-ownership of the action in both partners during the spontaneous imitation. The third study validated the experimental measurements with biophysical simulations of pairs of human brains. It also showed the effects of anatomical connectivity on intra-individual neural dynamics and the facilitation of the inter-individual sensorimotor coupling.
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Recent development in diffusion spectrum brain imaging combined to functional simulation has the potential to further our understanding of how structure and dynamics are intertwined in the human brain. At the intra-individual scale,... more
Recent development in diffusion spectrum brain imaging combined to functional simulation has the potential to further our understanding of how structure and dynamics are intertwined in the human brain. At the intra-individual scale, neurocomputational models have already started to uncover how the human connectome constrains the coordination of brain activity across distributed brain regions. In parallel, at the inter-individual scale, nascent social neuroscience provides a new dynamical vista of the coupling between two embodied cognitive agents. Using EEG hyperscanning to record simultaneously the brain activities of subjects during their ongoing interaction, we have previously demonstrated that behavioral synchrony correlates with the emergence of inter-brain synchronization. However, the functional meaning of such synchronization remains to be specified. Here, we use a biophysical model to quantify to what extent inter-brain synchronizations are related to the anatomical and functional similarity of the two brains in interaction. Pairs of interacting brains were numerically simulated and compared to real data. Results show a potential dynamical property of the human connectome to facilitate inter-individual synchronizations and thus may partly account for our propensity to generate dynamical couplings with others.
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Recent work from our interdisciplinary research group has revealed the emergence of inter-brain synchronization across multiple frequency bands during social interaction.1 Our findings result from the close collaboration between experts... more
Recent work from our interdisciplinary research group has revealed the emergence of inter-brain synchronization across multiple frequency bands during social interaction.1 Our findings result from the close collaboration between experts who study neural dynamics and developmental psychology. The initial aim of the collaboration was to combine knowledge from these two fields in order to move from a classical one-brain neuroscience towards a novel two-body approach. A new technique called hyperscanning has made it possible to study the neural activity of two individuals simultaneously. However, this advanced methodology was not sufficient in itself. What remained to be found was a way to promote real-time reciprocal social interaction between two individuals during brain recording and analyze the neural and behavioral phenomenon from an inter-individual perspective. Approaches used in infancy research to study nonverbal communication and coordination, between a mother and her child for example, have so far been poorly applied to neuroimaging experiments. We thus adapted an ecological two-body experiment inspired by the use of spontaneous imitation in preverbal infants. Numerous methodological and theoretical problems had to be overcome, ranging from the choice of a common time-unit for behavioral and brain recordings to the creation of algorithms for data processing between distant brain regions in different brains. This article will discuss the underlying issues and perspectives involved in elucidating the pathway from individual to social theories of cognition.
Addendum to: Dumas G, Nadel J, Soussignan R, Martinerie J, Garnero L. Inter-brain synchronization during social interaction. PLoS One 2010; 5:278-88.
Addendum to: Dumas G, Nadel J, Soussignan R, Martinerie J, Garnero L. Inter-brain synchronization during social interaction. PLoS One 2010; 5:278-88.
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Recently, the neuroscience field took a particular interest in the use of a neuroimaging technique called ‘hyperscanning’. This new technique consists in the simultaneous recording of the hemodynamic or neuroelectric activities of... more
Recently, the neuroscience field took a particular interest in the use of a neuroimaging technique called ‘hyperscanning’. This new technique consists in the simultaneous recording of the hemodynamic or neuroelectric activities of multiple subjects. Behind this small technical step lays a giant methodological leap. Groundbreaking insight in the understanding of social cognition shall be achieved if the right paradigms are implemented. A growing number of studies demonstrate the potential of this recent technique. In this paper, we will focus on current issues and future perspectives of brain studies using hyperscanning. We will also add to this review two studies initiated by Line Garnero. These studies will illustrate the promising possibilities offered by hyperscanning through two different key phenomena pertaining to social interaction: gesture imitation and joint attention.
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During social interaction, both participants are continuously active, each modifying their own actions in response to the continuously changing actions of the partner. This continuous mutual adaptation results in interactional synchrony... more
During social interaction, both participants are continuously active, each modifying their own actions in response to the continuously changing actions of the partner. This continuous mutual adaptation results in interactional synchrony to which both members contribute. Freely exchanging the role of imitator and model is a well-framed example of interactional synchrony resulting from a mutual behavioral negotiation. How the participants' brain activity underlies this process is currently a question that hyperscanning recordings allow us to explore. In particular, it remains largely unknown to what extent oscillatory synchronization could emerge between two brains during social interaction. To explore this issue, 18 participants paired as 9 dyads were recorded with dual-video and dual-EEG setups while they were engaged in spontaneous imitation of hand movements. We measured interactional synchrony and the turn-taking between model and imitator. We discovered by the use of nonlinear techniques that states of interactional synchrony correlate with the emergence of an interbrain synchronizing network in the alpha-mu band between the right centroparietal regions. These regions have been suggested to play a pivotal role in social interaction. Here, they acted symmetrically as key functional hubs in the interindividual brainweb. Additionally, neural synchronization became asymmetrical in the higher frequency bands possibly reflecting a top-down modulation of the roles of model and imitator in the ongoing interaction.
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With the recent development of –omics fields, many sub-disciplines in life sciences have embraced networks as a valuable formalism. This presentation will briefly introduce the core concepts of graph theory and major challenges at stake... more
With the recent development of –omics fields, many sub-disciplines in life sciences have embraced networks as a valuable formalism. This presentation will briefly introduce the core concepts of graph theory and major challenges at stake for biology. It will especially describe two applications: whole brain neuro-computational modeling with connectomics and network based stratification (NBS) with genomics. The first example builds on the importance of anatomical and functional interactions in neuroscience; through modeling, numerical simulation provide insight into the basic mechanisms that enable integrative neural processes and how structural brain networks generate spatially and temporally organized brain activity. The second example was originally designed for cancer research; the NBS combines genetic mutation profiles of patients with protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks to uncover cluster of patients with similar tumor subtypes. After reviewing the initial results, I will present preliminary work on autism and how NBS can help bridging the gap between genetic and neural scales.
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To complement experimental efforts toward understanding human social interactions at both neural and behavioral levels, two computational approaches are presented: (1) a fully parameterizable mathematical model of a social partner, the... more
To complement experimental efforts toward understanding human social interactions at both neural and behavioral levels, two computational approaches are presented: (1) a fully parameterizable mathematical model of a social partner, the Human Dynamic Clamp which, by virtue of experimentally controlled interactions with real people, allows for emergent behaviors to be studied; and (2) a multiscale neurocomputational model of social behavior that enables exploration of social self-organization at all levels—from neuronal patterns to people interacting with each other. These complementary frameworks and the cross product of their analysis aim at understanding the fundamental principles governing social behavior.
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How are neural, behavioral and social scales coordinated in real time so as to make possible the emergence of social cognition? Answering this question requires to study the dynamics of coordination in real human interactions. However,... more
How are neural, behavioral and social scales coordinated in real time so as to make possible the emergence of social cognition? Answering this question requires to study the dynamics of coordination in real human interactions. However, even at the simplest dyadic scale, methodological and theoretical challenges remain. Several theories have been proposed to infer the link between neurobiology and social psychology, but the dynamical components of human interaction are still poorly explored because of the difficulty to record simultaneously the brain activity from several subjects. This is the goal of hyperscanning methodology. I will first present how the combination of situated social paradigms with hyperscanning allowed to demonstrate that states of interactional synchrony at the behavioral level correlate with the emergence of inter-individual synchronization at the brain level (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2010). These inter-brain synchronization appeared to reflect in different frequency bands different aspects of social interaction, such as interactional synchrony, anticipation of other's actions and co-regulation of turn-taking. Then, I will present how such phenomena can be simulated with biologically inspired numerical simulations (e.g. using direct measures of brain connectivity with DTI) and how the human connectome facilitates inter-individual synchronizations and thus may partly account for our propensity to generate dynamical couplings with others (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2012). Finally, I will present another tool called the Human Dynamic Clamp (HDC) (Dumas et al. PNAS 2014). This HDC integrates equations of human motion at the neurobehavioral level. A human and a "virtual partner" are then reciprocally coupled in real-time, which allow controlling the dynamical parameters of the interaction while maintaining the continuous flow of interaction. This technique scaled up to the level of human behavior the idea of dynamic clamps used to study the dynamics of interactions between neurons. Combining human-human and human-machine interactions thus presents new approaches for investigating the neurobiological mechanisms of social interaction, and for testing theoretical/computational models concerning the dynamics at the neural, behavioral and social scales. The conclusion will illustrate the need to bridge the gap between those levels (and disciplines) with the example of autism where neurogenetics and systems biology may help tackling the heterogeneity across genotype, neural endophenotype, and socio-behavioral phenotype levels (Dumas et al. Front. Psychol. 2014).
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Our minds are tied to other minds through communication, whatever the communicative format used. Besides its learning function, spontaneous imitation offers a simple and intuitive way to communicate. Imitation-based communication is... more
Our minds are tied to other minds through communication, whatever the communicative format used. Besides its learning function, spontaneous imitation offers a simple and intuitive way to communicate. Imitation-based communication is available through the use of the two facets of imitation: imitating and being imitated. Preverbal infants take advantage of the two roles that they exchange as a turn-taking whilst they synchronize matched activities. Via this coordinated alternation of imitating and being imitated, infants can share the other’s intention at the first person, here and now, and see their intention performed at the third person. Our neuroimaging studies of interactive imitation in adults have shown that such communicative system relies on different brain networks depending on both social roles (leader/follower) and social context (spontaneous/induced) and the coordination of bottom-up and top-down processes. Although a deep impairment in imitation has been classically claimed as part of symptoms of autism, and a broken mirror hypothesis has been built on this basis, our studies demonstrate that even low-functioning persons with ASD can spontaneously imitate familiar actions and recognize be imitated. EEG results will also illustrate how differences previously found in ASD during action observation and associated with the mirror system may instead rely on top-down attentional and inhibitory processes. We will discuss how imitation affords ASD an opportunity to develop interactions via relating their motor patterns to the others. In this way, imitation can be seen as a source of shared generativity. Indeed our minds need meeting other minds to generate innovation and so is it for people with ASD.
References
DUMAS, G., MARTINERIE, J., SOUSSIGNAN, R., & NADEL, J. (2012). Does the brain know who is at the origin of what in an imitative interaction? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Special issue: Towards a neuroscience of social interaction, doi: 103389/fnhum.2012.00128.
DUMAS, G., NADEL, J., SOUSSIGNAN, R., MARTINERIE, J., & GARNERO, L. (2010). Inter-brain synchronizations during social interaction. PlosOne. , 5: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012166.
GUIONNET, S., NADEL, J., DELAVEAU, P., SPERDUTI, M., & FOSSATI, P. (2011). Reciprocal imitation: Towards a neural basis of social interaction. Cerebral Cortex, DOI 10 1093 cercor/bhr177
NADEL, J. (2014). How imitation boots development in infancy and Autism Spectrum disorder. Oxford: Oxford University Press
References
DUMAS, G., MARTINERIE, J., SOUSSIGNAN, R., & NADEL, J. (2012). Does the brain know who is at the origin of what in an imitative interaction? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Special issue: Towards a neuroscience of social interaction, doi: 103389/fnhum.2012.00128.
DUMAS, G., NADEL, J., SOUSSIGNAN, R., MARTINERIE, J., & GARNERO, L. (2010). Inter-brain synchronizations during social interaction. PlosOne. , 5: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012166.
GUIONNET, S., NADEL, J., DELAVEAU, P., SPERDUTI, M., & FOSSATI, P. (2011). Reciprocal imitation: Towards a neural basis of social interaction. Cerebral Cortex, DOI 10 1093 cercor/bhr177
NADEL, J. (2014). How imitation boots development in infancy and Autism Spectrum disorder. Oxford: Oxford University Press
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Comprendre la cognition sociale nécessite une étude des interactions spontanées. Pourtant, même à l'échelle dyadique, les défis méthodologiques et théoriques sont nombreux. Les composantes dynamiques et réciproques de l'interaction... more
Comprendre la cognition sociale nécessite une étude des interactions spontanées. Pourtant, même à l'échelle dyadique, les défis méthodologiques et théoriques sont nombreux. Les composantes dynamiques et réciproques de l'interaction humaine sont notamment mal explorées en neurosciences du fait de la difficulté à enregistrer simultanément l'activité cérébrale de plusieurs individus. C'est l'objectif de la méthode d'hyperscanning. La première partie présentera comment la combinaison de paradigmes sociaux situés avec de l'hyperscanning-EEG a permis de démontrer que les états de synchronie interactionnelle, au niveau comportemental, corrèlent avec l'émergence de synchronisation inter-individuelle au niveau neural (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2010). Cela a ainsi démontré pour la première fois des similitudes anatomo-fonctionnelles entre les deux cerveaux humains à l'échelle de la milli-seconde, et sans aucun signal de commande extérieur commun. Cette synchronisation inter-cerveaux, liée à différentes bandes de fréquences, reflète certains aspects de l'interaction sociale comme la synchronie interactionnelle, l'anticipation de l'autre, et la co-régulation de la prise de parole. Dans un second temps, nous verrons comment ces phénomènes peuvent être simulés numériquement à l'aide de modèles neurocomputationels, intégrant des données structurelles anatomiques (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2012). Ces simulations mettent en évidence en quoi les synchronies inter-cervaux observables reflètent plusieurs phénomènes distincts, et démontrent en quoi la structure anatomique du cerveau humain—le connectome—tends à faciliter les synchronisations inter-individuelles à l'échelle biologique. Ce dernier résultat peut donc expliquer, en partie, notre propension à entrer en couplage avec les autres. Enfin, il sera présenté un nouveau paradigme appelé Virtual Partner Interaction (VPI) (Kelso, et al. PLoS ONE 2009). Ce paradigme consiste en le couplage en temps réel d'un humain et d'un "partenaire virtuel" dont la dynamique comportementale est régie par des modèles dynamiques empiriquement validés. Sur le plan expérimental, cela permet l'établissement d'une interaction spontanée tout en gardant le contrôle sur une moitié de la dyade. Mais cette nouvelle approche permet également un dialogue direct entre les approches empiriques et théoriques de l'interaction sociale chez l'homme. L'étude des interactions spontanées "homme-homme" et "homme-machine" permet donc non-seulement de mieux étudier les mécanismes neurobiologiques sous-tendant la cognition sociale, mais également d'élaborer de nouveaux modèles théoriques intégrant à la fois le niveau neural, comportemental et social.
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How are neural, behavioral and social scales coordinated in real time so as to make possible the emergence of social cognition? Answering this question requires to study the dynamics of coordination in real human interactions. However,... more
How are neural, behavioral and social scales coordinated in real time so as to make possible the emergence of social cognition? Answering this question requires to study the dynamics of coordination in real human interactions. However, even at the simplest dyadic scale, methodological and theoretical challenges remain. Several theories have been proposed to infer the link between neurobiology and social psychology, but the dynamical components of human interaction are still poorly explored because of the difficulty to record simultaneously the brain activity from several subjects. This is the goal of hyperscanning methodology. I will first present how the combination of situated social paradigms with hyperscanning allowed to demonstrate that states of interactional synchrony at the behavioral level correlate with the emergence of inter-individual synchronization at the brain level (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2010). It thus demonstrated for the first time anatomo-functional similarities between two human brains at the millisecond level, without any common external driving signal. The related inter-brain synchronization in different frequency bands appeared to reflect different aspects of social interaction, such as interactional synchrony, anticipation of other's actions and co-regulation of turn-taking. Then, I will present how such phenomena can be simulated with biologically inspired numerical simulations (e.g. using direct measures of brain connectivity with DTI) and how the human connectome facilitates inter-individual synchronizations and thus may partly account for our propensity to generate dynamical couplings with others (Dumas et al. PLoS ONE 2012). Finally, I will present another tool called Virtual Partner Interaction (VPI) (Kelso, et al. PLoS ONE 2009). This VPI integrates equations of human motion at the neurobehavioral level. A human and a "virtual partner" are then reciprocally coupled in real-time, which allow controlling the dynamical parameters of the interaction while maintaining the continuous flow of interaction. This technique scaled up to the level of human behavior the idea of dynamic clamps used to study the dynamics of interactions between neurons. By combining studies on both human-human and human-machine interactions thus present new approaches for investigating the neurobiological mechanisms of interpersonal coordination, and test theoretical/computational models concerning the dynamics at the neural, behavioral and social scales.
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This TEDx talk presents how recent research in networks and social interaction, more than changing nueroscience, sheds new light on socioeconomic and cultural changes in society.
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XXth Dynamical Neuroscience Symposium
Collective cognition: The Neurophysiology of Social Neuroscience
Collective cognition: The Neurophysiology of Social Neuroscience
Part of the seminar "Hyperscanning: simultaneously record multiple subjects in neuroimaging" organized by the CogImage team
Poster nominated for oral presentation.
Science is defined as the set of scientific communities working to improve human knowledge and technology, in its international, methodological, ethical and political dimensions. Research institutions around the world are carrying out... more
Science is defined as the set of scientific communities working to improve human knowledge and technology, in its international, methodological, ethical and political dimensions. Research institutions around the world are carrying out this noble mission. However, research is currently the preserve of a restricted group of experts whose modes of production are often too opaque. Thus, knowledge is enclosed and not as accessible as it can be with modern technology. Yet, given the complexity of the world and the issues our time, it seems essential to bring science and knowledge as real commons.
The HackYourPhD community was born out of an acknowledgement that current ways of performing research frequently generate frustration, conflicts, and isolation. The crisis in research is sometimes covered in the media: job insecurity, rush to publication creating pressure and dishonest practices, privatization of knowledge through the grip of scientific publishing houses. This is a vision from the inside – that of research practitioners.
This picture may appear rather negative to society at large, which often does not understand how research works. Research is a “black box” for the majority of the population. There is a divide. Citizens often hold researchers in high esteem, but the crisis of trust is deepening, because of the lack of dialogue. However, there is hope: today’s knowledge society makes the emergence of citizen researchers both desirable and possible.
HackYourPhD brings together students, researchers, engaged citizens, hacktivists, tinkerers from all horizons, entrepreneurs, and everyone who is interested in the production and the sharing of knowledge in the wider sense. This collective aims to bring concrete solutions to complex issues and to build much-needed collaborative relationships between those involved in knowledge production. This is required for collective intelligence to come into existence and bring answers to urgent issues of society.
We wish, through common activities carried out by members of the community, to create healthy dynamics among researchers and to open the “black box” so that research may serve society rather than entrenched interests.
The HackYourPhD community was born out of an acknowledgement that current ways of performing research frequently generate frustration, conflicts, and isolation. The crisis in research is sometimes covered in the media: job insecurity, rush to publication creating pressure and dishonest practices, privatization of knowledge through the grip of scientific publishing houses. This is a vision from the inside – that of research practitioners.
This picture may appear rather negative to society at large, which often does not understand how research works. Research is a “black box” for the majority of the population. There is a divide. Citizens often hold researchers in high esteem, but the crisis of trust is deepening, because of the lack of dialogue. However, there is hope: today’s knowledge society makes the emergence of citizen researchers both desirable and possible.
HackYourPhD brings together students, researchers, engaged citizens, hacktivists, tinkerers from all horizons, entrepreneurs, and everyone who is interested in the production and the sharing of knowledge in the wider sense. This collective aims to bring concrete solutions to complex issues and to build much-needed collaborative relationships between those involved in knowledge production. This is required for collective intelligence to come into existence and bring answers to urgent issues of society.
We wish, through common activities carried out by members of the community, to create healthy dynamics among researchers and to open the “black box” so that research may serve society rather than entrenched interests.
Research Interests:
Emotion and motion are complementary sides of our social experiences though seldom studied in tandem. This study investigates variations in emotional responses during movement coordination between a human and a Virtual Partner (VP). VP is... more
Emotion and motion are complementary sides of our social experiences though seldom studied in tandem. This study investigates variations in emotional responses during movement coordination between a human and a Virtual Partner (VP). VP is an avatar whose virtual hand is displayed on a computer screen in front of a human participant. Its finger movement is driven by the Haken-Kelso-Bunz equations, an empirically validated model that captures intrapersonal, sensorimotor and interpersonal coordination. Thus the human being and the VP are able to coordinate with each other in a biologically and socially realistic manner. It is known that under certain coupling conditions, human beings tend to perceive VP as an intentional agent. 21 subjects were instructed to coordinate finger movement with VP in either inphase or antiphase patterns. By adjusting model parameters, we were able to manipulate the 'intention' of VP as cooperative or competitive with the human’s task goal. Here we investigate how humanness attribution, coordination patterns, and VP's intention relate to measures of emotional response. Skin potential responses (SPR) were recorded to quantify the intensity of emotional response. In each of 80 trials, subjects coordinated for 8 sec. to be either inphase or antiphase with the VP, during which VP's intention was (pseudo-) randomly assigned for every 4-sec. period to be either inphase (cooperative) or antiphase (competitive) with the human. At the end of each trial, participants rated the VP’s intention earlier/later in the coordination and whether the partner was actually another human being or a machine. SPR measurements were first validated and then applied to emotional responses during coordination and rating. We found greater emotional response when participants reported that their partner was human. This was observed both during coordination (ANOVA, p=0.020), and during rating (p=0.012). Furthermore, during rating, greater emotional response was found for cooperative than competitive behavior (p=0.012), modulated by VP's change of intention and actual coordination pattern. We show, therefore, that emotional responses are strongly influenced by features of the virtual partner's behavior associated with humanness, cooperation and change of intention. Our findings have implications for mental health (e.g. autism and schizophrenia) and the design of socially cooperative machines.
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The Human Dynamic Clamp (HDC) is a new paradigm for the study of social coordination. It consists of a human subject interacting reciprocally with a Virtual Partner (VP), the dynamics of which is based on an empirically validated model of... more
The Human Dynamic Clamp (HDC) is a new paradigm for the study of social coordination. It consists of a human subject interacting reciprocally with a Virtual Partner (VP), the dynamics of which is based on an empirically validated model of human coordination behavior. As a surrogate system for human social coordination, HDC allows realtime control and parametric manipulation of a VP’s intrinsic behavior and its coupling to humans. Subjects (n=20) were instructed to coordinate continuous finger movement inphase or antiphase with the VP, while the latter maintained either a cooperative (shared goal, in or antiphase) or competitive behavior (opposite goal), or switched between the two. Human and VP behaviors were recorded continuously, as well as subjects’ highdensity EEG used to estimate cortical sources and their dynamics, emotional (skin potential) responses and verbal reports of the VP’s intentions and humanness. Subjects accurately judged the intention of the VP (80.3% correct, 10.6% falsecooperation, 9.1% false competition) despite the confounding factor of task difficulty arising from performance of inphase (easier) vs antiphase coordination (more difficult). Source estimation in the 10Hz range suggested that right parietal cortex was associated with correct attribution of intention. Corticomotor coherence in the theta band also revealed how right parietal sources were coordinated with shared movement velocity. Self and other movement velocities were also coordinated with primary motor and visual cortices respectively. Subjects judged the VP to be human 47.3% of the time, especially during cooperative trials in the antiphase condition. Such judgment of humanness was associated with widespread functional connectivity in the frontoparietal network, along with an increase in alpha band activity over SMA and right temporal cortex. Interactions marked with high levels of emotional responses elicited a similar right temporal/insular activity in the alpha band (see companion work, Zhang et al.), while perception of cooperative partners elicited a pronounced decrease in alpha activity in left frontal superior cortex, suggesting intense cortical engagement in positive social contexts. By combining a realistic social interaction (HDC) and neuroimaging a number of key brain networks engaged in intention attribution, perception of cooperativeness, and attribution of humanness were uncovered. Knowledge of such brain networks in normal adults may lead to advances in understanding the interaction of self and other in patients suffering, e.g. from schizophrenia and depression.
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A hallmark of self-organizing brain and behavioral processes lies with the multiple routes available to achieve goal-directed behavior or a particular functional outcome. If activities of the brain such as elementary visual perception or... more
A hallmark of self-organizing brain and behavioral processes lies with the multiple routes available to achieve goal-directed behavior or a particular functional outcome. If activities of the brain such as elementary visual perception or movement already show evidence of degeneracy, the same must surely be true of a complex activity such as social behavior. The challenge undertaken here is to unfold, in single individual, trial-per-trial and dynamically across time, the transient spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity that accompany social behavior. In a task of action observation and delayed imitation by pairs of individuals taken as an exemplary case study, degeneracy is revealed when comparing neuromarkers of tasks and performance from the standpoint of inter-individual average (the gold standard), with their constitutive single-individual, single trial and dynamic instances. At each level and for all patterns (electrophysiological neuromarkers, their coupling within and between brains), this comparison reveals sizeable variability that is all too often left unexplained. That is, particular time samples, single trials and single subjects are all included in the inter-individual average. Yet, such subsamples frequently do not resemble the average “gold standard”. Instead, they show more and different structures, and they appear to cluster in several types of neurobehavioral signatures. Average representations fall short of completeness in describing only a fraction of the data -a fraction that is not necessarily the most frequent as we will show-. Thereby the process of averaging undermines an understanding of the system’s functionally-adaptive diversity. From the perspective of complexity science, we set aside the interpretation that variability arises from noise in the system and its measurement. Instead, we include all meaningful neurobehavioral variables in a common analytical space in order to shed light on the interplay between neurobehavioral factors (dispositions, priors, constraints and contexts) and goal performance. Degeneracy is essential in healthy complex systems. It allows for goals to be accomplished through substantial variations in context at multiples scales of social, behavioral and neural function. By explicitly acknowledging inter-individual variation and trial to trial variability in dynamic measures of brain activity, we aim to provide a deeper multifaceted explanation of the neural basis of social behavior.
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A great challenge in Social Neuroscience is to deal simultaneously with information from neural, behavioral and social levels. ‘Hyperscanning’ opens up a paradigm to study social interaction at multiple levels but faces the limits of... more
A great challenge in Social Neuroscience is to deal simultaneously with information from neural, behavioral and social levels. ‘Hyperscanning’ opens up a paradigm to study social interaction at multiple levels but faces the limits of experimental control inherent to investigating human interactions. We have proposed Virtual Partner Interaction (VPI) or the “human dynamic clamp” as a surrogate system to investigate human social behavior. This paradigm allows for real time interaction between a human partner and its computational mirror. Like the human, the virtual partner (VP) is described by nonlinear differential equations consisting of two terms: one for the intrinsic dynamics governing the VP, and the other specifying how the VP couples in real-time with a human subject. Parametric variations of the two terms open windows into a rich variety of social behaviors. Different time-scales of social interaction can be studied through modulation of the virtual partner’s (VP) intrinsic dynamics, including rhythmic coordination with the Haken-Kelso-Bunz model, discrete movement coordination with the Jirsa-Kelso Excitator model, and pace coordination by adding adaptive capabilities to the Excitator. We show that learning and social memory may be studied by enhancing the coupling in the Schöner-Kelso model of intentional coordination, thereby opening up opportunities for rehabilitation and therapeutic applications. Finally, we integrate the neural level with the human dynamic clamp by sampling neural activity of the human partner using suitable brain recordings (e.g. EEG, fMRI, PET, NIRS) on one side, and by plugging a realistic neurocomputational model into the virtual partner on the other side. The human dynamic clamp generalizes previous paradigms and opens up new possibilities for the development of “social computational neuroscience”.
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Social neuroscience has identified some of the key brain structures involved in social perception and cognition. Much less is known about the underlying neural dynamics and inter-individual variability during real time social interaction.... more
Social neuroscience has identified some of the key brain structures involved in social perception and cognition. Much less is known about the underlying neural dynamics and inter-individual variability during real time social interaction. The Virtual Partner Interaction (VPI) paradigm is a “human dynamic clamp” consisting of a human subject interacting reciprocally and in real-time with a computational model of him/herself. The virtual partner (VP) is based on am empirically validated model of human coordination behavior and is construed as having a degree of autonomy. Such a surrogate system for human social coordination allows parametric manipulation of the intrinsic dynamics of the virtual partner and its coupling to the human in real-time. We view social interaction as more than (and different from) the sum of individual behaviors and intentions. We assess subjects’ ability to recognize the cooperative or competitive intentions of their partner and by doing so uncover underlying behavioral factors and their neural dynamics. Subjects were instructed to coordinate continuous finger movements in-phase or anti-phase with the VP, while the latter maintained either a cooperative (same as human) or competitive (opposite to human) behavior, or switched between the two. The behaviors of both actual and virtual partners were recorded continuously, and subjects verbally reported VP’s intentions. We demonstrated that strong coupling, competitiveness and changes of intention of the VP improved the human’s attribution of intention. During the task, high-density EEG (121 electrodes) was recorded with the goal of determining the neural dynamics of the process of intention attribution. Coordination with the virtual partner elicited brain rhythms within the 10Hz range over the right parietal region. Statistical group analysis confirmed this neural link with intention attribution. Behavioral and neural dynamics revealed different subgroups with highly reproducible task-related neural signatures. These results demonstrate how standard-averaging methods can erase functionally relevant dynamics at the intra-individual level. A full account of intention attribution thus needs to consider the different reproducible neural signatures expressed within individuals. This is specifically of matter of importance for the diagnosis of mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, which combine impairment of intention attribution and high inter-individual variability.
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G. Dumas, E. Tognoli, J. Nadel, J. Martinerie and J.A.S. Kelso
F. Lachat, L. Conty, L. Hugeville, G. Dumas, J. Martinerie and N. George
G. Dumas, J. Martinerie, J. Nadel, R. Soussignan, M. Chavez and L. Garnero
G. Dumas, J. Martinerie, J. Nadel, R. Soussignan, M. Chavez and L. Garnero
Les auteurs présentent dans cet article les axes principaux d’un renouvellement et d’une redéfinition du paradigme classique des états modifiés de conscience (EMCs). Après une brève introduction expliquant la genèse de ce numéro... more
Les auteurs présentent dans cet article les axes principaux d’un renouvellement et d’une redéfinition du paradigme classique des états modifiés de conscience (EMCs). Après une brève introduction expliquant la genèse de ce numéro thématique, l’attention est portée sur quelques clarifications conceptuelles préalables à l’étude des EMCs. Les auteurs suggèrent que l’altération de la conscience peut s’entendre en quatre sens distincts : altération du contenu, de la qualité, de la modalité et du niveau de la conscience. Plusieurs problèmes et défis méthodologiques qui se posent à l’étude scientifique et naturaliste des EMCs sont ensuite examinés. Eu égard à la complexité de l’objet d’étude constitué par les EMCs, les auteurs soulignent l’importance des approches intégratives – transdisciplinaires – et multidimensionnelles. Les articles du numéro thématique sont enfin introduits et mis en perspective.
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In this article, the authors present the main issues that need to be addressed in order to renew and redefine the traditional approach to Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs). After a brief introduction shedding light on the genesis of this special issue and the rationale for the study of ASCs, attention is given to some conceptual clarifications required in the study of ASCs. The authors suggest that the alteration of consciousness can take place in four distinct ways: the alteration may concern the content, the quality, the modality and the level of consciousness. Next, several problems and methodological challenges posed by the scientific and naturalistic study of ASC are examined. Granted the inherent complexity of ASCs, the authors underscore the importance of integrative – transdisciplinary – and multidimensional approaches. All the articles included in the thematic issue are finally introduced and put into context.
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In this article, the authors present the main issues that need to be addressed in order to renew and redefine the traditional approach to Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs). After a brief introduction shedding light on the genesis of this special issue and the rationale for the study of ASCs, attention is given to some conceptual clarifications required in the study of ASCs. The authors suggest that the alteration of consciousness can take place in four distinct ways: the alteration may concern the content, the quality, the modality and the level of consciousness. Next, several problems and methodological challenges posed by the scientific and naturalistic study of ASC are examined. Granted the inherent complexity of ASCs, the authors underscore the importance of integrative – transdisciplinary – and multidimensional approaches. All the articles included in the thematic issue are finally introduced and put into context.