Depression uncouples brain hate circuit

It is increasingly recognized that we need a better understanding of how mental disorders such as depression alter the brain's functional connections to improve both early diagnosis and therapy. A new holistic approach has been used to investigate functional connectivity changes in the brains of patients suffering from major depression using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. A canonical template of connectivity in 90 different brain regions was constructed from healthy control subjects and this identified a six-community structure with each network corresponding to a different functional system. This template was compared with functional networks derived from fMRI scans of both first-episode and longer-term, drug resistant, patients suffering from severe depression. The greatest change in both groups of depressed patients was uncoupling of the so-called ‘hate circuit’ involving the superior frontal gyrus, insula and putamen. Other major changes occurred in circuits related to risk and action responses, reward and emotion, attention and memory processing. A voxel-based morphometry analysis was also carried out but this revealed no evidence in the depressed patients for altered gray or white matter densities in the regions showing altered functional connectivity. This is the first evidence for the involvement of the ‘hate circuit’ in depression and suggests a potential reappraisal of the key neural circuitry involved. We have hypothesized that this may reflect reduced cognitive control over negative feelings toward both self and others

Decoding collective communications using information theory tools

Organisms have evolved sensory mechanisms to extract pertinent information from their environment, enabling them to assess their situation and act accordingly. For social organisms travelling in groups, like the fish in a school or the birds in a flock, sharing information can further improve their situational awareness and reaction times. Data on the benefits and costs of social coordination, however, have largely allowed our understanding of why collective behaviours have evolved to outpace our mechanistic knowledge of how they arise. Recent studies have begun to correct this imbalance through fine-scale analyses of group movement data. One approach that has received renewed attention is the use of information theoretic (IT) tools like mutual information, transfer entropy and causation entropy, which can help identify causal interactions in the type of complex, dynamical patterns often on display when organisms act collectively. Yet, there is a communications gap between studies focused on the ecological constraints and solutions of collective action with those demonstrating the promise of IT tools in this arena. We attempt to bridge this divide through a series of ecologically motivated examples designed to illustrate the benefits and challenges of using IT tools to extract deeper insights into the interaction patterns governing group-level dynamics. We summarize some of the approaches taken thus far to circumvent existing challenges in this area and we conclude with an optimistic, yet cautionary perspective

Coxswain 2.0 – movement–acoustic dimensions of interpersonal coordination in team sports

Mannschaftssport erfordert neben der individuellen Bewegungskoordination auch die interpersonale Koordination der Bewegungen. Ein Beispiel ist das Rudern, bei dem die Technikkoordination und -synchronisation essenziell für die Erzeugung mannschaftlicher Synergieeffekte sind. In diesem Artikel wird ein Ansatz zur systematischen Untersuchung interpersonaler Koordinationsmechanismen vorgestellt, der zusätzliche Optionen zur unmittelbaren (sport-)praktischen Anwendung bietet. Ein zentrales Element ist die Methode der Bewegungssonifikation, mit der Bewegungsparameter im zeitlichen Verlauf akustisch abgebildet werden. Auf diese Weise können dynamische und kinematische Bewegungsinformationen selektiv vermittelt und ihre wahrnehmungs- und ausführungsseitigen Wirkungen verglichen werden. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde die Wirkung sonifizierter kinematischer und dynamischer Bewegungsparameter auf Synchronisations- und Wahrnehmungsgenauigkeiten untersucht. Dazu ruderten Versuchspersonen auf einem Ruderergometer zu den Sonifikationen einer anderen Person und schätzten in einer separaten Aufgabe die Frequenzen gehörter Bewegungen der eigenen Person sowie der anderer Personen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Versuchspersonen ihre Ruderbewegungen in Abhängigkeit der dargebotenen Informationsart zeitlich variierten. Keine signifikanten Unterschiede ergaben sich hingegen bei der Schätzung der Bewegungsfrequenzen. Dennoch wurden eigene Bewegungsfrequenzen anders geschätzt als die Frequenzen anderer Personen. Dieser sogenannte Eigen/Fremd-Effekt wurde unter Berücksichtigung zweier Kovariaten signifikant: 1. der Leistung während der Synchronisationsaufgabe und 2. der Fähigkeit, eigene sonifizierte Bewegungen zu identifizieren. Diese Ergebnisse deuten auf eine unmittelbare Ansteuerung motorischer Repräsentationen durch das Hören von Bewegungssonifikationen hin und lassen Rückschlüsse zur Struktur der Repräsentationen zu. Perspektiven für die Sportpraxis ergeben sich in Form einer gezielten interpersonalen Abstimmung und Synchronisation der individuellen Bewegungstechniken mittels zeitsynchroner Übermittlung kinematischer und dynamischer Bewegungsinformationen anderer Teammitglieder.Team sport requires individual and interpersonal coordination of movements. In rowing, for example, the coordination and synchronization of movement techniques is essential to create synergy effects of joint team rowing. Here, we provide a new approach for the systematic investigation of the mechanisms behind interpersonal coupling and discuss its direct applicability to sport practice. The key element is movement sonification, which describes the transformation of movement features into sound features. Thus, dynamic and kinematic movement information can be selectively conveyed and their perception–action effects be compared. The present study compared the impact of kinematic and dynamic sonifications on movement synchronization and perceptual accuracy. In a first session, the participants rowed on an indoor rower to sonifications of another person. In a second session, they listened to sonifications of their own and to those of other persons and estimated rowing frequencies. In the synchronization task, the participants temporally adjusted their rowing movements in relation to the type of information provided. In the perceptual task, differences between conditions were not significant. However, estimation of movement frequencies differed when listening to their own movements compared to listening to other movements. This own/other effect became significant after controlling (1). for the synchronization performance and (2). for the ability to identify their own techniques on the basis of the sonifications. These variables significantly covaried with the own/other effect. The results suggest that the listening to movement sonifications directly addresses motor representations and permits conclusions about the structure of those representations. Perspectives for sport practice are given by increased synchronization and enhanced interpersonal coordination of individual movement techniques by means of a transmission of kinematic and dynamic movement information to all team members at the same time