About

This project hasreceived funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 799238.

The BetweenTwoBrains project tackled the complex challenge of understanding the neural mechanisms underlying social collaboration and interaction. This research is crucial for society as social cognition and collaboration are fundamental to human functioning, profoundly impacting daily life, from professional teamwork to personal relationships and overall mental well-being. By delving into the biological underpinnings of social collaboration, the project helps to deconstruct preconceived notions about social functioning, potentially reducing the stigma associated with social difficulties. The project's significance extends beyond individual interactions to broader societal implications, including potential applications in mental health, particularly for conditions characterised by social challenges such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and psychosis.

To address these complex issues, the project set out three main objectives. First, it sought to investigate the specificity of neural networks involved in social collaboration using advanced neuroimaging techniques to map brain activity during social interactions. Second, it aimed to probe the link between interpersonal synchronisation and social collaboration, exploring how physical coordination relates to perceived collaborative success. Finally, it focused on investigating synchronisation in autism spectrum disorder, examining how differences in social perception might manifest in individuals with autistic traits or at risk of psychosis. These objectives were designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of social collaboration's neural and behavioural aspects, from basic perceptual processes to more complex social interactions, including atypical social cognition.

The BetweenTwoBrains project employed a multifaceted approach, combining cutting-edge technologies and analytical methods to study social collaboration. The work began with creating a comprehensive library of realistic 3D animations depicting a wide range of dyadic social interactions. These animations were developed using motion capture technology to record professional actors improvising common social scenarios, ensuring the stimuli were as naturalistic as possible.

Building on this foundation, the project conducted a series of neuroimaging experiments using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine the oscillatory neural networks engaged during social collaboration observation. These experiments employed high-resolution MEG with sophisticated data processing techniques to capture detailed brain activity patterns. Complementing the neuroimaging work, behavioural experiments were conducted to analyse interpersonal kinematics in social interactions, focusing on aspects such as distance, synchrony, and causality.

The project also delved into clinical aspects, investigating links between autism traits, psychosis risk, and perception of social synchronisation. This involved using various psychometric tools, including the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and Prodromal Questionnaire-16 (PQ-16). Data analysis was a crucial component of the project, implementing advanced multivariate pattern analyses and applying machine learning techniques to model synchronisation factors influencing perceptions of collaborative success.

The project's main results were multifaceted and groundbreaking. Regarding neural mechanisms of social perception, the research identified a distinct spatiotemporal arc in the perception of social interaction, involving initial sharpening (weighting of prior social information) followed by dampening (suppression of that information). These processes were found to be distributed across various brain regions, including early visual areas, the social visual stream, and the dorsal visual area.

Analysis of interpersonal kinematics revealed that causality was the strongest predictor of perceived collaborative success, followed by synchrony and distance. This provides valuable insights into how people evaluate individual collaboration based on movement patterns. In the realm of autism and psychosis risk, the project discovered that psychosis risk may have a greater impact than autistic traits on sensitivity to interpersonal synchronisation prediction violations and found a significant positive correlation between psychosis risk and autistic traits.

The project's results were disseminated through various channels, including journal publications in peer-reviewed international journals, conference presentations, public outreach activities, and workshops. This comprehensive dissemination strategy ensured that the project's findings reached the scientific community and the broader public.

The BetweenTwoBrains project made advancements beyond the state of the art in several areas. Methodologically, it provided unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution in describing predictive mechanisms underlying the perception of dynamic social interactions. The project developed novel experimental paradigms combining MEG and motion capture technology, allowing for more ecologically valid social cognition studies.

Theoretically, the project offered new insights into the links between autism traits, psychosis risk, and social perception, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of atypical social cognition. It provided evidence for a spatiotemporal arc in social perception, advancing our understanding of how the brain processes social information over time. These findings have significant clinical relevance, contributing to the potential identification of neural biomarkers for social dysfunction in conditions like autism and psychosis.

The project's potential impacts are far-reaching. Scientifically, it advances our understanding of neural mechanisms supporting social perception and collaboration, enhancing European competitiveness in cognitive neuroscience research. In clinical applications, the findings could inform the development of new training and therapeutic approaches to improve social skills in individuals with ASD or at risk of psychosis and contribute to early identification and intervention strategies for social cognitive deficits.

The project's insights could be translated into educational and professional applications, informing strategies to enhance social skills development and improve teamwork in business settings. On a broader societal level, the research enhances public understanding of social cognition and its biological basis, potentially reducing the stigma associated with social difficulties and contributing to a more inclusive society by improving the understanding of diverse social cognitive profiles.

Technologically, the project advances methods for studying complex social behaviours in neuroscience, which could be applied to other areas of cognitive research. The interdisciplinary approach and focus on ecological validity in studying social cognition have broader implications for investigating complex social behaviours in neuroscience. This could lead to a paradigm shift in social cognitive research, emphasising more naturalistic and dynamic experimental designs.

In conclusion, the BetweenTwoBrains project advanced our understanding of social cognition and collaboration; it helps pave the way for future research and applications that could impact future strategies to harness the importance of social interactions as a vehicle for health and well-being.