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BACKGROUND: Targeting the maximal ventricular resynchronization, with the shortest QRS duration (QRSd), is commonly implemented after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). OBJECTIVE: We compared optimization of ventricular resynchronization with optimization of left ventricular (LV) filling during CRT by measuring their acute hemodynamic effects. METHODS: Patients with standard CRT indications, recruited from two centers, underwent biventricular pacing (BVP) and left bundle branch pacing (LBBP). We performed a within-patient comparison of acute hemodynamic response of systolic blood pressure (SBP) at the atrioventricular delay (AVD) with the shortest QRSd against the AVD with the most efficient LV filling. In a validation sub-study, we also performed electrical assessment using QRS area (QRSa) and hemodynamic assessment with the maximum rate of LV pressure rise (dP/dtmax). RESULTS: Thirty patients (age 65 ± 10, 53% male) were recruited. The AVD producing maximal ventricular resynchronization was associated with a significantly shorter QRSd (difference 15 ± 12 ms for BVP and 18 ± 13 ms for LBBP, both P < 0.01) and a significantly smaller improvement in SBP (difference 3 ± 4 mmHg for BVP, and 2 ± 2 mmHg for LBBP, both P < 0.01) compared with the AVD that optimized filling. Similar findings were observed in the sub-study, with a significantly smaller improvement in dP/dtmax assessed with QRSd and QRSa (difference 9 ± 7% and 6 ± 4% during BVP, and 5 ± 6% and 3 ± 3% during LBBP, all P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Targeting the maximal ventricular resynchronization results in suboptimal acute hemodynamic performance with both BVP and LBBP as CRT. These findings support prioritizing LV filling when programming AVD for CRT.

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Ketamine is a widely used clinical drug that has several functional and clinical applications, including its use as an anaesthetic, analgesic, anti-depressive, anti-suicidal agent, among others. Among its diverse behavioral effects, it influences short-term memory and induces psychedelic effects. At the neural level across different brain areas, it modulates neural firing rates, neural tuning, brain oscillations, and modularity, while promoting hypersynchrony and random connectivity between neurons. In our recent studies we demonstrated that topical application of ketamine on the visual cortex alters neural tuning and promotes vigorous connectivity between neurons by decreasing their firing variability. Here, we begin with a brief review of the literature, followed by results from our lab, where we synthesize a dendritic model of neural tuning and network changes following ketamine application. This model has potential implications for focused modulation of cortical networks in clinical settings. Finally, we identify current gaps in research and suggest directions for future studies, particularly emphasizing the need for more animal experiments to establish a platform for effective translation and synergistic therapies combining ketamine with other protocols such as training and adaptation. In summary, investigating ketamine's broader systemic effects, not only provides deeper insight into cognitive functions and consciousness but also paves the way to advance therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Social avoidance refers to the tendency to be alone and non-participating to social interactions, which is considered to hamper health interpersonal relationship. However, the neural underpinnings of social and emotional interactions among social avoidant individuals have not been fully studied. In the present study, we used EEG hyperscanning technology to investigate the brain activity and its synchronization of 25 socially avoidant dyads and 28 comparison dyads during an emotional communication task. The emotional communication task consisted of the emotional processing stage and emotional interaction stage. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of the senders during the emotional processing stage and the interbrain synchrony (IBS) of the dyads during the emotional interaction stage were analyzed. Results showed that (1) socially avoidant group showed higher beta, theta and gamma IBS in the negative condition than in the positive and neutral condition; (2) in positive condition, the N1 and LPP amplitudes during the emotional processing stage of socially avoidant individuals were negatively correlated with the IBS within dyads during the emotional communication stage. The findings suggest that the dysfunctional emotional interaction of social avoidant individuals may be attributed to the negative impact of emotional stimuli processing during emotional communication.

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Political partisanship is often conceived as a lens through which people view politics. Behavioral research has distinguished two types of "partisan lenses"-policy-based and identity-based-that may influence peoples' perception of political events. Little is known, however, about the mechanisms through which partisan discourse appealing to policy beliefs or targeting partisan identities operate within individuals. We addressed this question by collecting neuroimaging data while participants watched videos of speakers expressing partisan views. A "partisan lens effect" was identified as the difference in neural synchrony between each participant's brain response and that of their partisan ingroup vs. outgroup. When processing policy-based messaging, a partisan lens effect was observed in socio-political reasoning and affective responding brain regions. When processing negative identity-based attacks, a partisan lens effect was observed in mentalizing and affective responding brain regions. These data suggest that the processing of political discourse that appeals to different forms of partisanship is supported by related but distinguishable neural-and therefore psychological-mechanisms, which may have implications for how we characterize partisanship and ameliorate its deleterious impacts.

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BACKGROUND: Peer support for chronic pain is increasingly taking place on social media via social networking communities. Several theories on the development and maintenance of chronic pain highlight how rumination, catastrophizing, and negative social interactions can contribute to poor health outcomes. However, little is known regarding the role web-based health discussions play in the development of negative versus positive health attitudes relevant to chronic pain. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate how participation in online peer-to-peer support communities influenced pain expressions by examining how the sentiment of user language evolved in response to peer interactions. METHODS: We collected the comment histories of 199 randomly sampled Reddit (Reddit, Inc) users who were active in a popular peer-to-peer chronic pain support community over 10 years. A total of 2 separate natural language processing methods were compared to calculate the sentiment of user comments on the forum (N=73,876). We then modeled the trajectories of users' language sentiment using mixed-effects growth curve modeling and measured the degree to which users affectively synchronized with their peers using bivariate wavelet analysis. RESULTS: In comparison to a shuffled baseline, we found evidence that users entrained their language sentiment to match the language of community members they interacted with (t198=4.02; P<.001; Cohen d=0.40). This synchrony was most apparent in low-frequency sentiment changes unfolding over hundreds of interactions as opposed to reactionary changes occurring from comment to comment (F2,198=17.70; P<.001). We also observed a significant trend in sentiment across all users (ß=-.02; P=.003), with users increasingly using more negative language as they continued to interact with the community. Notably, there was a significant interaction between affective synchrony and community tenure (ß=.02; P=.02), such that greater affective synchrony was associated with negative sentiment trajectories among short-term users and positive sentiment trajectories among long-term users. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with the social communication model of pain, which describes how social interactions can influence the expression of pain symptoms. The difference in long-term versus short-term affective synchrony observed between community members suggests a process of emotional coregulation and social learning. Participating in health discussions on Reddit appears to be associated with both negative and positive changes in sentiment depending on how individual users interacted with their peers. Thus, in addition to characterizing the sentiment dynamics existing within online chronic pain communities, our work provides insight into the potential benefits and drawbacks of relying on support communities organized on social media platforms.

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For prey, movement synchrony represents a potent antipredator strategy. Prey, however, must balance the costs and benefits of using conspecifics to mediate risk. Thus, the emergent patterns of risk-driven sociality depend on variation in space and in the predators and prey themselves. We applied the concept of predator-prey habitat domain, the space in which animals acquire food resources, to test the conditions under which individuals synchronize their movements relative to predator and prey habitat domains. We tested the response of movement synchrony of prey to predator-prey domains in two populations of ungulates that vary in their gregariousness and predator community: (i) elk, which are preyed on by wolves; and (ii) caribou, which are preyed on by coyotes and black bears. Prey in both communities responded to cursorial predators by increasing synchrony during seasons of greater predation pressure. Elk moved more synchronously in the wolf habitat domain during winter and caribou moved more synchronously in the coyote habitat domains during spring. In the winter, caribou increased movement synchrony when coyote and caribou domains overlapped. By integrating habitat domains with movement ecology, we provide a compelling argument for social behaviours and collective movement as an antipredator response. This article is part of the theme issue 'The spatial-social interface: A theoretical and empirical integration'.

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Rising global levels of dementia including Alzheimer's disease call for the treatment of both cognitive and psychosocial deficits of this population. While there is no cure for dementia, the progression can be slowed, and symptoms eased. The positive effects of exercise and dance have been documented as has interpersonal synchrony. Dance/movement therapy uses kinesthetic empathy, attunement, and mirroring to communicate, synchronize, and connect with clients, salient for a population that often struggles with loneliness and isolation. Here I offer a perspective on how dance/movement therapy promotes the social functions and neural underpinning of interpersonal synchrony, possibly providing neuroprotection for this population.

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In occupational therapy, crafts and groups are used as therapeutic tools, but their electrophysiological effects have not been well described. This study aimed to investigate the effects of group crafting on the physiological synchrony (PS) of dyadic heartbeats and on the autonomic activity and electroencephalogram (EEG) of individuals. In this cross-sectional study, individuals' EEG and dyadic electrocardiogram (ECG) were measured during the task in a variety of conditions. The three conditions were alone, parallel, nonparallel. Autonomic activity from the subjects' ECG, PS from the dyadic ECG, and current source density from exact Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography (eLORETA) from subjects' EEG were analyzed. Measurements from 30 healthy young adults showed that the parallel condition significantly increased subjects' parasympathetic activity and dyadic PS. Parallel condition and frontal midline theta influenced parasympathetic activity, whereas parasympathetic activity was not associated with PS. Dyadic lag value were correlated with frontal delta, beta, and gamma activity. The results suggest that crafting in parallel groups increases parasympathetic activity and PS through different mechanisms, despite the absence of direct interaction. They also explain the electrophysiological evidence for the use of crafts and groups in psychiatric occupational therapy, such as increased relaxation and PS.

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Introduction: In recent decades, interpersonal coordination and synchrony have been extensively examined in the field of psychology and cognitive science. Studies suggest that perceptual information enables interpersonal coordination and that perceptual noise may even enhance coordination. However, how these perceptual factors influence interpersonal coordination dynamics between head and body movements remains unclear. This study investigated the effect of visual information on the interpersonal coordination of head and body movements during dyadic conversations. Methods: The availability of visual information was manipulated by positioning a partition halfway between a pair of participants, and the conversations were recorded using a video camera. A video-based human pose estimation software (OpenPose) was used to quantify each interlocutor's head and body movements, which were submitted for cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA), to assess the degree of coordination between the interlocutors. Results: The results showed different effects between head- and body-movement coordination (i.e., a CRQA measure, maximum line length). The occlusion of visual information increased head-movement coordination, whereas it decreased body-movement coordination. Discussion: The results suggest that a distinct mechanism may be present at the head- and body-movement coordination level and this study observed differing appearances of compensatory behaviors. Further studies should be conducted to investigate the complex relationships between interpersonal coordination dynamics and various kinds of communication constraints, such as long-term or short-term, and lower-order (perceptual-motor) or higher-order (cognitive-social) level constraints.

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Tourette syndrome (TS) is a high-incidence neurobehavioral disorder that generally begins in childhood. Several factors play a role in its etiology, including genetic influence and auto-immune activation by streptococcal infections. In general, symptoms subside after the end of adolescence, but, in a significant number of patients, they remain in adulthood. In this study, we evaluated temporal variations in the two core clinical features of TS including tics and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms. An observational longitudinal study lasting 15 months (2017-2019) was conducted on a cohort of 24 people recruited in Milan (Italy) who were diagnosed with a subtype of TS known as obsessive-compulsive tic disorder. Inclusion criteria included a global score of the Yale global tic severity scale (Y-GTSS) > 50, a Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale (Y-BOCS) global score > 15, and TS onset at least one year prior. Y-GTSS and Y-BOCS data were acquired at six time points, together with local environmental data. Tics, but not OCD symptoms, were found to be more severe in spring and summer compared with winter and autumn (p < 0.001). Changes in tics displayed an appreciable oscillation pattern in the same subject and also a clear synchrony among different subjects, indicating an external orchestrating factor. Ambient temperature showed a significant correlation with Y-GTSS measurements (p < 0.001). We argue that the increase in tics observed during hot seasons can be related to increasing ambient temperature. We believe that our results can shed light on the seasonal dynamics of TS symptomatology and provide clues for preventing their worsening over the year.

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Background: Complete bundle branch block in individuals without structural heart disease is known as isolated complete bundle branch block. Isolated complete left bundle branch block (CLBBB) is correlated with ventricular dysfunction secondary to dyssynchrony; however, few studies have investigated isolated complete right bundle branch block (CRBBB), which was previously considered benign but was recently found to be associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate cardiac mechanical synchrony, and systolic and diastolic function in patients with isolated CRBBB and compare cardiac synchrony and function to patients with isolated CLBBB. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at The First Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, China, from 2020 to 2021. A total of 44 isolated CRBBB patients, 44 isolated CLBBB patients, and 42 healthy subjects were enrolled in the study. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed in all subjects. Synchrony parameters, including the mechanical dispersion of the right ventricle [the standard deviation of time to the peak longitudinal strain of six right ventricular (RV) segments] and atrioventricular dyssynchrony parameter [the ratio of left ventricular (LV) diastolic filling time to the time interval between two adjacent R waves (RR interval) measured by tissue Doppler imaging]. RV and LV function were assessed by the global longitudinal strain (GLS) of six RV segments and 18 LV segments, and the ratio of the peak early diastolic flow velocity to annular velocity (E/e') of the tricuspid valve and mitral valve. Statistical analyses were performed, including an analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, and linear regression analysis. Results: Compared with the healthy subjects, the mechanical dispersion of the right ventricle was significantly increased, and ventricular function was impaired as evidenced by the decreased RV GLS and LV GLS, and the increased E/e' of the tricuspid valve and mitral valve in the isolated CRBBB patients (all P<0.001). Moreover, compared with the isolated CLBBB patients, the mechanical dispersion of the right ventricle and E/e' of the tricuspid valve were increased, and RV GLS was significantly reduced in the isolated CRBBB patients (all P<0.001). Mechanical dispersion of the right ventricle was independently associated with RV GLS [coefficient, 0.13; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.004-0.26; P=0.04] in the isolated CRBBB patients. RV GLS (coefficient, 0.10; 95% CI: 0.01-0.20; P=0.03) and the ratio of the LV diastolic filling time to the RR interval measured (coefficient, -0.30; 95% CI: -0.53 to -0.07; P=0.01) were independent factors of LV GLS. Conclusions: The isolated CRBBB patients had impaired cardiac mechanical synchrony and ventricular function, and more decreased RV synchrony and function than the isolated CLBBB patients. Right intraventricular synchrony was independently associated with RV systolic dysfunction in patients with isolated CRBBB. Atrioventricular synchrony and RV systolic function were independently associated with the LV systolic function. Therefore, comprehensive evaluations of echocardiography results and close monitoring is required for isolated CRBBB patients.

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Synchronization of spikes carried by the visual streams is strategic for the proper binding of cortical assemblies, hence for the perception of visual objects as coherent units. Perception of a complex visual scene involves multiple trains of gamma oscillations, coexisting at each stage in visual and associative cortex. Here, we analyze how this synchrony is managed, so that the perception of each visual object can emerge despite this complex interweaving of cortical activations. After a brief review of structural and temporal facts, we analyze the interactions which make the oscillations coherent for the visual elements related to the same object. We continue with the propagation of these gamma oscillations within the sensory chain. The dominant role of the pulvinar and associated reticular thalamic nucleus as cortical coordinator is the common thread running through this step-by-step description. Synchronization mechanisms are analyzed in the context of visual perception, although the present considerations are not limited to this sense. A simple experiment is described, with the aim of assessing the validity of the elements developed here. A first set of results is provided, together with a proposed method to go further in this investigation.

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We investigated the contribution of multisensory predictions to body ownership, and beyond, to the integration of body-related signals. Contrary to the prevailing idea, according to which, to be integrated, cues necessarily have to be perceived simultaneously, we instead proposed the prediction-confirmation account. According to this account, a perceived cue can be integrated with a predicted cue as long as both signals are relatively simultaneous. To test this hypothesis, a standard rubber hand illusion (RHI) paradigm was used. In the first part of each trial, the illusion was induced while participants observed the rubber hand being touched with a paintbrush. In the subsequent part of the trial, (i) both rubber hand and the participant's real hand were stroked as before (i.e., visible/synchronous condition), (ii) the rubber hand was not stroke anymore (i.e., visible/tactile-only condition), or (iii) both rubber hand and the participant's real hand were synchronously stroked while the location where the rubber hand was touched was occulted (i.e., occulted/synchronous condition). However, in this latter condition, participants still perceived the approaching movement of the paintbrush. Thus, based on this visual cue, the participants can properly predict the timepoint at which the tactile cue should occur (i.e., visuotactile predictions). Our major finding was that compared with the visible/tactile-only condition, the occulted/synchronous condition did not exhibit a decrease of the RHI as in the visible/synchronous condition. This finding supports the prediction-confirmation account and suggests that this mechanism operates even in the standard version of the RHI.

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INTRODUCTION: Accumulating research emphasizes the role of interpersonal coordination in arousal levels, which may manifest as cortisol synchrony, in interpersonal interactions. While the role of cortisol has been investigated in psychotherapy, cortisol synchrony and its characteristics and effect on treatment progress remain a relatively unexplored area. This study aims to explore the existence of distinct patterns of cortisol coordination throughout psychotherapy and test the associations of different coordination patterns with patients' pre-treatment characteristics and treatment progress measures. METHODS: Fifty patient-therapist dyads participated in 16 weeks of psychodynamic treatment for major depressive disorder. Salivary cortisol samples were collected before and after each session at four time points. Self-report questionnaires and treatment session video-coding were used to characterize and differentiate between patterns of cortisol coordination. RESULTS: Three patterns of cortisol coordination were identified: synchronized, unsynchronized and stable-therapist. These patterns differed in patient characteristics and treatment progress measures in that patients exhibiting a synchronized pattern tended to be more anxious and dominant in their relationships and were more prone to withdrawal ruptures. CONCLUSIONS: Results provide novel evidence regarding variability in patient-therapist cortisol patterns and its putative associations with treatment progress.

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Hyperscanning, which enables the recording of brain activity from multiple individuals simultaneously, has been increasingly used to investigate the neuropsychological processes underpinning social interaction. Previous hyperscanning research has primarily focused on interbrain synchrony, demonstrating an enhanced alignment of brain waves across individuals during social interaction. However, using EEG hyperscanning simulations, we here show that interbrain synchrony has low sensitivity to information alignment across people. Surprisingly, interbrain synchrony remains largely unchanged despite manipulating whether two individuals are seeing same or different things at the same time. Furthermore, we show that hyperscanning recordings do contain indices of interpersonal information alignment and that they can be captured using representational analyses. These findings highlight major limitations of current hyperscanning research and offer a promising alternative for investigating interactive minds.

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Defining spatial synchronisation of pathological beta oscillations is important, given that many theories linking them to parkinsonian symptoms propose a reduction in the dimensionality of the coding space within and/or across cortico-basal ganglia structures. Such spatial synchronisation could arise from a single process, with widespread entrainment of neurons to the same oscillation. Alternatively, the partially segregated structure of cortico-basal ganglia loops could provide a substrate for multiple ensembles that are independently synchronized at beta frequencies. Addressing this question requires an analytical approach that identifies groups of signals with a statistical tendency for beta synchronisation, which is unachievable using standard pairwise measures. Here, we utilized such an approach on multichannel recordings of background unit activity (BUA) in the external globus pallidus (GP) and subthalamic nucleus (STN) in parkinsonian rats. We employed an adapted version of a principle and independent component analysis-based method commonly used to define assemblies of single neurons (i.e., neurons that are synchronized over short timescales). This analysis enabled us to define whether changes in the power of beta oscillations in local ensembles of neurons (i.e., the BUA recorded from single contacts) consistently covaried over time, forming a "beta ensemble". Multiple beta ensembles were often present in single recordings and could span brain structures. Membership of a beta ensemble predicted significantly higher levels of short latency (<5 ms) synchrony in the raw BUA signal and phase synchronisation with cortical beta oscillations, suggesting that they comprised clusters of neurons that are functionally connected at multiple levels, despite sometimes being non-contiguous in space. Overall, these findings suggest that beta oscillations do not comprise of a single synchronisation process, but rather multiple independent activities that can bind both spatially contiguous and non-contiguous pools of neurons within and across structures. As previously proposed, such ensembles provide a substrate for beta oscillations to constrain the coding space of cortico-basal ganglia circuits.

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Regulatory efforts are hypothesized to affect associations between emotions and physiology (i.e., concordance) to facilitate adaptive functioning. Assessing the role of coping on physiological-emotional concordance during ecologically relevant scenarios can elucidate whether concordance can serve as a biomarker of risk or resilience. The present study assessed self-reported coping as a moderator of minute-to-minute associations between autonomic nervous system activity and emotions (i.e., physiological-emotional concordance) in caregivers (N = 97) and adolescents (N = 97; ages 10-15) during a dyadic conflict task. Models included physiological variables (sympathetic, skin conductance level [SCL]; and parasympathetic, respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and their interaction (SCL × RSA) as predictors of emotions, with coping variables as moderators. Caregivers' use of primary control coping (e.g., problem solving and emotional expression) and secondary control coping (e.g., cognitive reappraisal and acceptance) use in response to family stress predicted more positive emotional experiences during the laboratory conflict task. Adolescents' use of secondary control coping moderated the SCL-emotion association, such that increases in momentary SCL were associated with more positive emotion ratings for youth reporting higher secondary control coping. For youth who report more adaptive trait-level coping skills, momentary changes in SCL may reflect active engagement and attentiveness to facilitate more positive emotional experiences. Findings advance our understanding of the interrelationships between physiological responses and psychological experiences during relevant, interactive scenarios. Autonomic responses are differentially related to affective states depending on the coping strategies that adolescents employ, suggesting that concordance may be associated with intervention targets (i.e., coping skills).

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Collective rituals involve the coordination of intentions and actions and have been shown to promote the alignment of emotional states and social identities. However, the mechanics of achieving group-level synchrony is yet unclear. We report the results of a naturalistic study in the context of an Islamic congregational prayer that involves synchronous movement. We used wearable devices to capture data on body posture, autonomic responses and spatial proximity to investigate how postural alignment and shared arousal intertwine during this ritual. The findings reveal a dual process at play: postural alignment appears to be more localized, with worshippers synchronizing their movements with their nearest neighbours, while physiological alignment operates on a broader scale, primarily driven by the central role of the religious leader. Our findings underscore the importance of interpersonal dynamics in collective gatherings and the role of physical co-presence in fostering connections among participants, with implications extending to our understanding of group dynamics across various social settings.This article is part of the theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.

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