Multimodal hyperscanning reveals that synchrony of body and mind are distinct in mother-child dyads
Vanessa Reindl,
Sam Wass,
Victoria Leong,
Wolfgang Scharke,
Sandra Wistuba,
Christina Lisa Wirth,
Kerstin Konrad,
Christian Gerloff
Affiliations
Vanessa Reindl
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany; Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore S639818, Republic of Singapore; Corresponding author at: Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
Sam Wass
Division of Psychology, University of East London, London E16 2RD, United Kingdom
Victoria Leong
Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore S639818, Republic of Singapore; Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom
Wolfgang Scharke
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; Chair of Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Sandra Wistuba
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Christina Lisa Wirth
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Kerstin Konrad
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany
Christian Gerloff
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Neuropsychology Section, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Germany; Chair II of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Hyperscanning studies have begun to unravel the brain mechanisms underlying social interaction, indicating a functional role for interpersonal neural synchronization (INS), yet the mechanisms that drive INS are poorly understood. The current study, thus, addresses whether INS is functionally-distinct from synchrony in other systems – specifically the autonomic nervous system and motor behavior. To test this, we used concurrent functional near-infrared spectroscopy - electrocardiography recordings, while N = 34 mother-child and stranger-child dyads engaged in cooperative and competitive tasks. Only in the neural domain was a higher synchrony for mother-child compared to stranger-child dyads observed. Further, autonomic nervous system and neural synchrony were positively related during competition but not during cooperation. These results suggest that synchrony in different behavioral and biological systems may reflect distinct processes. Furthermore, they show that increased mother-child INS is unlikely to be explained solely by shared arousal and behavioral similarities, supporting recent theories that postulate that INS is higher in close relationships.
