Neural Synchrony During Emotional Interactions As Predictive Markers of Interpersonal Risk and Resilience for Depression
Interpersonal dysfunction is a debilitating and difficult to treat, aspect of depression that strongly predicts a chronic course in depressed individuals. At the same time, interpersonal difficulties also increase the risk for depression in close relationship partners of those with depression – including friends and spouses – through a process called ‘depression contagion’. Indeed, major theories of depression have long proposed that depressed individuals’ communication behaviors can elicit stress and rejection in their close relationships, leading to the maintenance or exacerbation of depression symptoms over time. Clarifying the biobehavioral dynamics that unfold during interpersonal interactions is therefore critical to developing novel interventions and treatments aimed at reducing the intractable problem of interpersonal dysfunction in depression.
Emerging research suggests that synchrony, or the temporal coordination of experience, behavior, and neurophysiology between dyadic partners, may help elucidate how interpersonal processes confer risk and resilience for depression. Evidence from relationship research (e.g., romantic couples, parent-child) demonstrates that synchrony in a variety of indices (e.g., gaze, affect, cortisol) acts as a coregulatory mechanism that facilitates interpersonal bonding. However, during distressing contexts, strong synchrony also reinforces negative emotions, putting each member of the dyad at risk for psychopathology. Recently, enabled by simultaneous dual-subject neuroimaging (i.e., hyperscanning), studies are beginning to quantify real-time connectivity between brains (i.e., neural synchrony). These studies, primarily focused on neural synchrony during positive emotional contexts, showed that higher levels of neural synchrony are linked to greater interaction satisfaction in romantic couples and in mother-child dyads. In particular, past research indicates a key role for theta oscillation within the mentalizing network of the brain (i.e., prefrontal and centroparietal regions). Together, these findings indicate that theta synchrony within the mentalizing network during interactions is a promising mechanistic target of interpersonal risk and resilience for depression.
Lillian Li, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and her colleague, Stewart A. Shankman, PhD, Professor, both in the Stephen M. Stahl Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, using an MRI Grant, are testing the novel hypothesis that neural synchrony during negative and positive emotional contexts will longitudinally predict changes in depression severity and interpersonal stressors in adult close-friend dyads over 3 months. This approach builds upon Dr Li’s experience with EEG time-frequency analysis and her recently funded National Institute of Mental Health grant on neural synchrony during a negative emotional context (problem discussion) between adults with elevated depression symptoms and their same-sex close friend. For this project, a subset of her NIMH subjects will additionally complete a positive sharing task designed to elicit positive emotions and interpersonal closeness within the dyad and biweekly surveys of depression symptoms and interpersonal stressors for 3 months.
Specific aims and hypotheses are:
Test if greater neural synchrony during a negative emotional context predicts maintenance of depression symptoms and interpersonal stressors over 3 months.
Test if greater neural synchrony during a positive emotional context predicts decreased depression symptoms and interpersonal stressors over 3 months.
Test impact of neural synchrony on a close friend – i.e., greater neural synchrony during a negative/positive emotional context predicts increases/decreases in depression symptoms and interpersonal stressors in friend over 3 months.
Synchrony will be measured by EEG connectivity between friends during the negative and positive interactions via hyperscanning.
Findings from this project will help to pinpoint specific brain networks that can aid in the development of dual-brain stimulation approaches focused on improving interpersonal functioning. Further, this project will provide critical pilot data for future studies that extend findings to adolescents, ultimately contributing to the development of early intervention approaches.