Wavelet analysis of dual-fMRI-hyperscanning reveals cooperation and communication dependent effects on inter-brain neuronal coherence.

Abstract Hyperscanning has allowed neuroscience to expand investigations into neuronal activation during social interactions. Rather than analyzing how a single brain responds, we can compare interactions and even synchronization between multiple actors in varying situations. This technique is commonly employed using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Specifically, social cooperation and competition have been thoroughly investigated using this approach. While functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-based hyperscanning is becoming more prevalent, a link to this fNIRS-based foundation is missing. We here use a dual-fMRI-hyperscanning setup and an established task to investigate neuronal coherence during social cooperative and competitive tasks. Wavelet transform coherence (WTC) allows us to explore task-specific frequency bands of interest of non-stationary neuronal activation signals of paired participants (n=60). We show that cooperation, compared to a control task, increases inter-brain neuronal coherence in regions associated with social interaction and the theory of mind (ToM) network. Verbal communication prior to the task expands this coherence to different regions of this network, including middle and superior temporal gyrus. This spatial shift suggests additional implementations of the ToM network depending on the cooperation approach taken by the participants. Our findings both support and expand on results by previous fNIRS-based studies and show that WTC is an effective way to model fMRI-based neuronal synchronization; thereby closing the gap between two popular hyperscanning methodologies. Significance Statement Within social neuroscience a strong basis exists for fNIRS-based hyperscanning. In the past years fMRI-based hyperscanning has increased in popularity, yet the basis for these projects seems to develop independent of the existing background. The current study aims to connect these previous findings to the possibilities offered by fMRI, allowing both fields to benefit from the other’s advantages when determining optimal research paradigms or analyses. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Footnotes Competing Interest Statement: The authors declare that they do not have any financial or personal conflicts of interest affecting the objectivity of the work.