<p>In <a href="https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2020/1/niaa010/5856030" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this survey</a> of studies about interbrain synchronization, the authors talk about subjective reports of 'self-other merging' (non-singular experiences of consciousness).</p>
<p>The supposition is supported by hyperscanning studies demonstrating the correlation between objective measurements of brain-to-brain synchrony such as Phase Locking Value or Wavelet Coherence, with situations of shared social intention such as cooperative games.</p>
<p>Notably, in order to establish true causality for the social/intentional basis of interbrain synchrony (as opposed to shared external stimuli), many of these studies perform controls which rule out different forms of stimulus.</p>
<ul>
<li>For example, this <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01811/full" rel="nofollow noreferrer">singing/humming study</a> placed an opaque partition between participants to eliminate visual communication:</li>
<li>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301051117303538" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this study</a> where pairs of participants interacted indirectly by playing the Prisoner's Dilemma game on computers, interbrain synchrony was observed when participants were told they were playing with a human partner, but was not when they were (falsely) told they were playing with a machine</li>
<li>An <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.651949/full" rel="nofollow noreferrer">alternative summary</a></li>
</ul>
<p>My question is: if interbrain synchrony is real, and is triggered by social intention instead of shared sensory stimulus, what is the physical explanation for the observed phase locking between multiple brains?  How can physically distant brains synchronize their electrical oscillations?  Can human brains really communicate directly with each other?</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In non-human animals:
In vertebrates, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroreception" rel="nofollow noreferrer">electroreception</a> is only known to occur in species with specifically evolved sensory organs, and generally requires water or humidity for efficiency.  Furthermore, even if electrocommunication could account for electric signals travelling the distance between brains, it cannot explain the physiological aspect of interbrain synchrony (which is measured in terms of synchronized readings from similar brain regions).</p>
</li>
<li><p>Conversely:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mirror neurons</a> may explain the physiological correlations of interbrain synchrony, but seem to be dependent on external sensory stimulus.  This appears to be at odds with experimental setups which purposely introduce indirections between participants.  Additionaly, mirror neurons are compatible with an internalist explanation of interbrain synchrony which denies the first authors' suggestions regarding a non-private consciousness.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Both mechanisms are compatible with a separate experimental observation that interbrain synchrony is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141958/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">positively correlated with oxytocin</a>, which I understand to be a neuropeptide that encourages neural (electrical) activity.</p>
<p>What I would like to know is the scientific consensus on how interbrain synchronization is possible.  There seems to be enough evidence to establish that it is a phenomenon which really occurs.  Researchers also seem clear/insistent on describing brain-to-brain synchrony as distinct from correlated reactions to shared sensory stimuli.  In that case, it seems that there must be some alternative hypothesis for how synchronization is mechanically possible.</p>
<p>Edit:
Here are some additional references to help elucidate the primary question, which is whether or not it is possible for interbrain synchrony to be mediated purely by shared stimuli.</p>
<p>Among the indirect channels of sensory stimulus, various forms of touch, visual, and auditory stimulus have each been discovered to have strong correlations to b2b synchrony.  However, the fact that they are not exclusive channels raises the question of how/whether they have the bandwith to carry the necessary amount of information to produce the observed synchronization patterns:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/11/E2528.short" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> Synchrony is enhanced by touch (though does not require it).</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17339-5" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> Synchrony is associated with nonverbal positive affect (gaze, smiling) even in no-speech conditions.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867419305513" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> Egyption fruit bats exhibit synchrony in a dark room. (Synchrony was not strongly correlated with sound, but hearing was the only sense generally present/available.) This study has a novel methodology and several notable results, including the fact that rises and falls in neural synchrony were predictive of changes in social activity -- in other words, neural changes occured <em>before</em> behavioural ones.</li>
</ul>
<p>Conversely, hypotheses not mediated by sensory stimuli rely on electro- or magneto-reception. Humans are not known to possess specific electroreceptors, but they do appear to possess the best known <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5695626/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">magnetic candidates</a> (cryptochromes and magnetite).
However, explanations based on electro- or magneto-reception do not seem fully satisfactory on account of the weakness of human-generated electromagnetic fields and their rapid attenuation with distance.</p>
<p>Some authors <em>do</em> go so far as to say that the observed patterns of brain-to-brain synchrony are too improbable to be explained by intermediary sensory stimuli; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04464-4" rel="nofollow noreferrer">to quote</a>, interaction between &quot;neural oscillators from two autonomous human brains&quot;.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I lack the background in mathematics, physics and biology to determine which of the hypotheses is more improbable.  Is the increased intensity of interbrain synchronization correlating to various control conditions (e.g. touch vs no touch, nonverbal affect with no speech, belief in playing with humans vs computers) <strong>really</strong> too mathematically improbable to be explained by biological factors like oxytocin (associated with affective touch) or increased cognitive attention?  Or are the electromagnetic fields generated by human neural activity really too weak to be detected by biological electro-/magneto-receptors, at distances of a few meters?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-17T22:25:05.223Z
In your third link (the prisoner's dilemma one) I'd want to examine the methodology and get a better idea of precisely what's meant by synchronisation (phase congruence or only frequency congruence) in that particular context - but can't find the full text, do you have access and can you clarify at all (without breaking copyright)?
Jiminy Cricket.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-20T04:49:10.040Z
@ARogueAnt. Hello, thanks for your response.  I'm a layperson with respect to the field of neuroscience so my understanding is based only on free/publicly available papers.  Regarding interpretation of the prisoner's dilemma study, my description was informed by references to it in the first link I posted, specifically *Table 1* and the paragraph beginning "Moreover, a recent study revealed that participants playing a cooperation game face-to-face".
Unfortunately, I do not have access to the text of the study itself.
YMA
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-20T14:53:06.883Z
"What I would like to know is the scientific consensus on how interbrain synchronization is possible" - my understanding is that the consensus is that it is not possible without being mediated by other external factors. Otherwise it's proposing something outside known physics. While there may be a lot of challenges to the laws physics, it's sufficiently difficult to actually win such a challenge that doing so gains you a lot of name recognition (e.g., Einstein). I think if these experiments think they've truly isolated people, there's still some shared signal they've failed to control.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-20T14:53:38.740Z
(or they have fallen into this trap: https://xkcd.com/882/ ). Without their data or access to their setup, though, it's not really going to be possible to refute the claims. They don't seem to make any effort to explain their own results, so I don't think it's really up to others to do so.
Bryan Krause
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-21T03:52:56.420Z
@BryanKrause Hello, thanks for your input.  Although your position makes sense, what I am particularly interested in is a comparison of the various physical channels for the most feasible medium to explain the features of interbrain synchrony.  For now, I've expanded my question with additional research clarifying the possibilities.
YMA
<cognitive-neuroscience><mirror-neurons><oxytocin><hyperscanning><inter-brain>
How is interbrain synchrony physically possible?
YMA
# How is interbrain synchrony physically possible?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-10-17)

In [this survey](https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2020/1/niaa010/5856030) of studies about interbrain synchronization, the authors talk about subjective reports of 'self-other merging' (non-singular experiences of consciousness).

The supposition is supported by hyperscanning studies demonstrating the correlation between objective measurements of brain-to-brain synchrony such as Phase Locking Value or Wavelet Coherence, with situations of shared social intention such as cooperative games.

Notably, in order to establish true causality for the social/intentional basis of interbrain synchrony (as opposed to shared external stimuli), many of these studies perform controls which rule out different forms of stimulus.

* For example, this [singing/humming study](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01811/full) placed an opaque partition between participants to eliminate visual communication:
* In [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301051117303538) where pairs of participants interacted indirectly by playing the Prisoner's Dilemma game on computers, interbrain synchrony was observed when participants were told they were playing with a human partner, but was not when they were (falsely) told they were playing with a machine
* An [alternative summary](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.651949/full)

My question is: if interbrain synchrony is real, and is triggered by social intention instead of shared sensory stimulus, what is the physical explanation for the observed phase locking between multiple brains? How can physically distant brains synchronize their electrical oscillations? Can human brains really communicate directly with each other?

* In non-human animals:
  In vertebrates, [electroreception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroreception) is only known to occur in species with specifically evolved sensory organs, and generally requires water or humidity for efficiency. Furthermore, even if electrocommunication could account for electric signals travelling the distance between brains, it cannot explain the physiological aspect of interbrain synchrony (which is measured in terms of synchronized readings from similar brain regions).
* Conversely:
  [Mirror neurons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron) may explain the physiological correlations of interbrain synchrony, but seem to be dependent on external sensory stimulus. This appears to be at odds with experimental setups which purposely introduce indirections between participants. Additionaly, mirror neurons are compatible with an internalist explanation of interbrain synchrony which denies the first authors' suggestions regarding a non-private consciousness.

Both mechanisms are compatible with a separate experimental observation that interbrain synchrony is [positively correlated with oxytocin](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141958/), which I understand to be a neuropeptide that encourages neural (electrical) activity.

What I would like to know is the scientific consensus on how interbrain synchronization is possible. There seems to be enough evidence to establish that it is a phenomenon which really occurs. Researchers also seem clear/insistent on describing brain-to-brain synchrony as distinct from correlated reactions to shared sensory stimuli. In that case, it seems that there must be some alternative hypothesis for how synchronization is mechanically possible.

Edit:
Here are some additional references to help elucidate the primary question, which is whether or not it is possible for interbrain synchrony to be mediated purely by shared stimuli.

Among the indirect channels of sensory stimulus, various forms of touch, visual, and auditory stimulus have each been discovered to have strong correlations to b2b synchrony. However, the fact that they are not exclusive channels raises the question of how/whether they have the bandwith to carry the necessary amount of information to produce the observed synchronization patterns:

* [link](https://www.pnas.org/content/115/11/E2528.short) Synchrony is enhanced by touch (though does not require it).
* [link](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17339-5) Synchrony is associated with nonverbal positive affect (gaze, smiling) even in no-speech conditions.
* [link](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867419305513) Egyption fruit bats exhibit synchrony in a dark room. (Synchrony was not strongly correlated with sound, but hearing was the only sense generally present/available.) This study has a novel methodology and several notable results, including the fact that rises and falls in neural synchrony were predictive of changes in social activity -- in other words, neural changes occured *before* behavioural ones.

Conversely, hypotheses not mediated by sensory stimuli rely on electro- or magneto-reception. Humans are not known to possess specific electroreceptors, but they do appear to possess the best known [magnetic candidates](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5695626/) (cryptochromes and magnetite).
However, explanations based on electro- or magneto-reception do not seem fully satisfactory on account of the weakness of human-generated electromagnetic fields and their rapid attenuation with distance.

Some authors *do* go so far as to say that the observed patterns of brain-to-brain synchrony are too improbable to be explained by intermediary sensory stimuli; [to quote](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04464-4), interaction between "neural oscillators from two autonomous human brains".

Unfortunately, I lack the background in mathematics, physics and biology to determine which of the hypotheses is more improbable. Is the increased intensity of interbrain synchronization correlating to various control conditions (e.g. touch vs no touch, nonverbal affect with no speech, belief in playing with humans vs computers) **really** too mathematically improbable to be explained by biological factors like oxytocin (associated with affective touch) or increased cognitive attention? Or are the electromagnetic fields generated by human neural activity really too weak to be detected by biological electro-/magneto-receptors, at distances of a few meters?

**Tags:** cognitive-neuroscience, mirror-neurons, oxytocin, hyperscanning, inter-brain

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: In your third link (the prisoner's dilemma one) I'd want to examine the methodology and get a better idea of precisely what's meant by synchronisation (phase congruence or only frequency congruence) in that particular context - but can't find the full text, do you have access and can you clarify at all (without breaking copyright)?  
> **username_0**: @ARogueAnt. Hello, thanks for your response.  I'm a layperson with respect to the field of neuroscience so my understanding is based only on free/publicly available papers.  Regarding interpretation of the prisoner's dilemma study, my description was informed by references to it in the first link I posted, specifically *Table 1* and the paragraph beginning "Moreover, a recent study revealed that participants playing a cooperation game face-to-face". Unfortunately, I do not have access to the text of the study itself.  
> **username_2**: "What I would like to know is the scientific consensus on how interbrain synchronization is possible" - my understanding is that the consensus is that it is not possible without being mediated by other external factors. Otherwise it's proposing something outside known physics. While there may be a lot of challenges to the laws physics, it's sufficiently difficult to actually win such a challenge that doing so gains you a lot of name recognition (e.g., Einstein). I think if these experiments think they've truly isolated people, there's still some shared signal they've failed to control.  
> **username_2**: (or they have fallen into this trap: https://xkcd.com/882/ ). Without their data or access to their setup, though, it's not really going to be possible to refute the claims. They don't seem to make any effort to explain their own results, so I don't think it's really up to others to do so.  
> **username_0**: @BryanKrause Hello, thanks for your input.  Although your position makes sense, what I am particularly interested in is a comparison of the various physical channels for the most feasible medium to explain the features of interbrain synchrony.  For now, I've expanded my question with additional research clarifying the possibilities.  

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## 0 answers

