inspired by all the brilliant work from auditory visual processing and groups from @cnspworkshop.bsky.social

This thread is also a perfect time to share this recent spot-on piece by @escross.bsky.social — and I'm grateful to see our dancing brain featured! Couldn’t agree more: thrilled to see dance stepping into the neuroscience spotlight!

More to come…!

my dear co-partners in crime: @robertabianco.bsky.social, @saraabalde, @trinhnguyen.bsky.social and @giacomonovembre.bsky.social :)

These findings show how computational neuroscience can reveal the brain mechanisms behind real-world movement and social behavior — helping us understand how the brain supports dynamic, interactive moments.

This brain result echoes our earlier behavioral finding: that bounce might play a key role in how we naturally sync up with others when we dance!

(see our Current Biology paper: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Finally, we found one dance move that stands out: vertical bounce!

Using PCA, we found that bounce explains over 80% of the brain responses tied to both moving and watching a partner. This is noteworthy as bounce was explaining even less than 1% of the kinematic variance!

We also uncovered a new brain signal for social coordination! 🧠👯

This signal tracks how well dancers move in sync, beyond just reacting to your own or your partner’s movements. It shows up when partners make eye contact, comes from visual areas, and is driven by watching (not initiating) movement.

We linked the mTRF results to well-known brain signals using classic ERP analysis. The first three processes reflect known ERPs:

(I) frontotemporal P50-N100-P200 for sound,
(II) central-lateralized motor potentials for movement initiation, and
(III) occipital N170 for movement observation.

mTRFs teased apart four key processes:

(I) auditory tracking of music,
(II) control of self-generated movements,
(III) visual monitoring of partner movements, and
(IV) visual tracking of social coordination accuracy.

Importantly, these are all independent of eye, face and neck muscle activity!

We recorded EEG, 3D full-body kinematics, EOG, and EMG signals from 80 participants freely dancing in pairs to music. Then we used advanced denoising techniques and multivariate temporal response functions (mTRFs) to to tease apart neural signals related to music, movement, and social partners.

feat. the fantastic @felixbigand.bsky.social @susannereisner.bsky.social @ateshkoul.bsky.social Roberta Bianco Gabriela Markova @stefaniehoehl.bsky.social & @giacomonovembre.bsky.social @iitalk.bsky.social @univie.ac.at @kinderstudien.bsky.social

Thanks :)

Hi! Thanks for this, I'd be happy to be in :) working on hyperscanning and dance

Hi Marta, thanks for putting this together! I'd be happy to be added.

interested in (and working on) dance, music and movement, combining neuroimaging and 3D kinematics methods!

Thanks for this! :) I'd be happy to be in the list (I'm studying dance and music)

Thanks!

Thanks so much for this, and hi everyone! Would love to be added too!