Search Results (23)

Current research on multimodal AR-HUD navigation systems primarily focuses on the presentation forms of auditory and visual information, yet the effects of synchrony between auditory and visual prompts as well as prompt timing on driving behavior and attention mechanisms remain insufficiently explored. This study employed a 2 (prompt mode: synchronous vs. asynchronous) × 3 (prompt timing: −2000 m, −1000 m, −500 m) within-subject experimental design to assess the impact of multimodal prompt synchrony and prompt distance on drivers’ reaction time, sustained attention, and eye movement behaviors, including average fixation duration and fixation count. Behavioral data demonstrated that both prompt mode and prompt timing significantly influenced drivers’ response performance (indexed by reaction time) and attention stability, with synchronous prompts at −1000 m yielding optimal performance. Eye-tracking results further revealed that synchronous prompts significantly enhanced fixation stability and reduced visual load, indicating more efficient information integration. Therefore, prompt mode and prompt timing significantly affect drivers’ perceptual processing and operational performance. Delivering synchronous auditory and visual prompts at −1000 m achieves an optimal balance between information timeliness and multimodal integration. This study recommends the following: (1) maintaining temporal consistency in multimodal prompts to facilitate perceptual integration and (2) controlling prompt distance within an intermediate range (−1000 m) to optimize the perception–action window, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of AR-HUD navigation systems. Full article

Although widely used across disciplines, the terms emotion and feeling remain conceptually ambiguous, particularly within developmental science. Emotion is defined as an evolutionarily conserved, biologically embedded system of action readiness and intersubjective communication, shaped by attentional, neural, and physiological reactivity to environmental salience. In contrast, feeling is conceptualized as the consciously experienced, representational outcome of emotional activation, emerging through cognitive appraisal and symbolic processing. Building upon this distinction, the review explores how emotion develops within parent–child dyads through coregulated neurocognitive and psychophysiological mechanisms. Drawing on empirical evidence from eye-tracking studies of visual attention to emotional faces, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) research on social-emotional activation in prefrontal brain regions, and cortisol-based assessments of hormonal synchrony, the paper highlights how emotional attunement and transmission are embedded in early caregiving interactions. The review also emphasizes the moderating role of environmental sensitivity—both in children and parents—in shaping these developmental pathways. By positioning emotion as a dynamic, intersubjective process and feeling as its emergent experiential correlate, this review offers a novel developmental framework for understanding affect and proposes directions for future research on resilience, dysregulation, and intervention. Full article

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sensorimotor disorder with evening-predominant symptoms; convergent models implicate brain iron dysregulation and alter dopaminergic/glutamatergic signaling. Because EEG provides millisecond-scale access to cortical dynamics, we synthesized waking EEG/ERP findings in RLS (sleep EEG excluded). A structured search across major databases (1980–July 2025) identified clinical EEG studies meeting prespecified criteria. Across small, mostly mid- to late-adult cohorts, four reproducible signatures emerged: (i) cortical hyperarousal at rest (fronto-central beta elevation with a dissociated vigilance profile); (ii) attentional/working memory ERPs with attenuated and delayed P300 (and reduced frontal P2), pointing to fronto-parietal dysfunction; (iii) network inefficiency (reduced theta/gamma synchrony and lower clustering/longer path length) that scales with symptom burden; and (iv) motor system abnormalities with exaggerated post-movement beta rebound and peri-movement cortical–autonomic co-activation, together with evening-vulnerable early visual processing during cognitive control. Dopamine agonist therapy partially normalizes behavior and ERP amplitudes. These converging EEG features provide candidate biomarkers for disease burden and treatment response and are consistent with models linking brain iron deficiency to thalamo-cortical timing failures. This mechanistic review did not adhere to PRISMA or PICO frameworks and did not include a formal risk-of-bias or quantitative meta-analysis; samples were small, heterogeneous, and English-only. Full article

Acropora palmata, a keystone Caribbean coral species, is currently subject to intense restoration efforts across the region. Despite its known annual broadcast spawning, in situ monitoring of 33 colonies in Cozumel, Mexico, from 2018 to 2025 revealed a near-complete absence of spawning activity. While “setting” was occasionally observed, no simultaneous spawning events occurred among colonies, impeding assisted fertilization. This eight-year effort, involving academic institutions, government, NGOs, and the community, highlights the breakdown in reproductive synchrony of A. palmata. We discuss possible contributing factors, including artificial light, sedimentation, thermal anomalies, water quality and direct human impact. These findings demand immediate regional attention and investigation to identify the underlying causes of this reproductive failure. Full article

Background: Inter-brain synchrony (IBS)—the temporal alignment of neural activity between individuals during social interactions—has emerged as a key construct in social neuroscience, reflecting shared attention, emotional attunement, and coordinated behavior. Enabled by hyperscanning techniques, IBS has been observed across a range of dyadic contexts, including cooperation, empathy, and communication. This systematic review synthesizes recent empirical findings on inter-brain synchrony (IBS)—the temporal alignment of neural activity between individuals—across psychological and neurodevelopmental conditions, including stress, anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: Drawing on 30 studies employing hyperscanning methodologies (EEG, fNIRS, fMRI), we examined how IBS patterns vary by clinical condition, dyad type, and brain region. Results: Findings indicate that IBS is generally reduced in anxiety, depression, and ASD, particularly in key social brain regions such as the dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortices (dlPFC, mPFC, vmPFC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), suggesting impaired emotional resonance and social cognition. In contrast, stress elicited both increases and decreases in IBS, modulated by context, emotional proximity, and cooperative strategies. Parent–child, therapist–client, and romantic dyads exhibited distinct synchrony profiles, with gender and relational dynamics further shaping neural coupling. Conclusions: Collectively, the findings support IBS as a potentially dynamic, condition-sensitive, and contextually modulated neurophysiological indicator of interpersonal functioning, with implications for diagnostics, intervention design, and the advancement of social neuroscience in clinical settings. Full article

Classroom attention is a fundamental cognitive function that is crucial to effective learning and significantly influences academic performance. Recent advances in investigating neural correlates of attention in classroom environments provide insights into underlying neural mechanisms and potentially enhance educational outcomes. This paper presents a scoping review of empirical studies investigating neural activities associated with students’ attention in classroom environments. Based on the 16 studies that we included after systematically searching, five main objectives were identified: (i) examination of neural markers of student attention in classroom environments, (ii) comparison of different learning environments, (iii) comparison of different classroom activities, (iv) data quality examination, and (v) student attention improvement. All selected studies used electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to measure neural activities, primarily using NeuroSky and Emotiv EPOC devices. Researchers measured classroom attention through brain-to-brain synchrony or frequency power. While differences in neural activity across classroom activities were noted, further investigation is needed for consistent results. Most studies focused on university students and had limited sample sizes, though they covered diverse study domains. Overall, while some preliminary results have been identified, there are several concerns regarding the neural measurements of attention used, contradictory findings, lack of verification, and limited sample sizes and techniques. Further studies are recommended to extend our understanding of neural evidence of attention in classroom environments. Full article

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder with motor and non-motor symptoms that are inadequately addressed by current pharmacological and surgical therapies. Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), particularly those based on electroencephalography (eBCIs), provide a promising, non-invasive approach to personalized neurorehabilitation. This narrative review explores the clinical potential of BCIs in PD, discussing signal acquisition, processing, and control paradigms. eBCIs are well-suited for PD due to their portability, safety, and real-time feedback capabilities. Emerging neurophysiological biomarkers—such as beta-band synchrony, phase–amplitude coupling, and altered alpha-band activity—may support adaptive therapies, including adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS), as well as motor and cognitive interventions. BCIs may also aid in diagnosis and personalized treatment by detecting these cortical and subcortical patterns associated with motor and cognitive dysfunction in PD. A structured search identified 11 studies involving 64 patients with PD who used BCIs for aDBS, neurofeedback, and cognitive rehabilitation, showing improvements in motor function, cognition, and engagement. Clinical translation requires attention to electrode design and user-centered interfaces. Ethical issues, including data privacy and equitable access, remain critical challenges. As wearable technologies and artificial intelligence evolve, BCIs could shift PD care from intermittent interventions to continuous, brain-responsive therapy, potentially improving patients’ quality of life and autonomy. This review highlights BCIs as a transformative tool in PD management, although more robust clinical evidence is needed. Full article

Grounded in the theory of metacognitive prediction error minimization, this study is the first to propose and empirically validate the mechanism of implicit metacognitive predictive processing by which bodily interaction influences the Aha! experience. Three experimental groups were designed to manipulate the level of temporal synchrony in bodily interaction: Immediate Mirror Group, Delayed Mirror Group, and No-Interaction Control Group. A three-stage experimental paradigm—Prediction, Execution, and Feedback—was constructed to decompose the traditional holistic insight task into three sequential components: solution time prediction (prediction phase), riddle solving (execution phase), and self-evaluation of Aha! experience (feedback phase). Behavioral results indicated that bodily interaction significantly influenced the intensity of the Aha! experience, likely mediated by metacognitive predictive processing. Significant or marginally significant differences emerged across key measures among the three groups. Furthermore, fNIRS results revealed that low-frequency amplitude during the “solution time prediction” task was associated with the Somato-Cognitive Action Network (SCAN), suggesting its involvement in the early predictive stage. Functional connectivity analysis also identified Channel 16 within the reward network as potentially critical to the Aha! experience, warranting further investigation. Additionally, the high similarity in functional connectivity patterns between the Mirror Game and the three insight tasks implies that shared neural mechanisms of metacognitive predictive processing are engaged during both bodily interaction and insight. Brain network analyses further indicated that the Reward Network (RN), Dorsal Attention Network (DAN), and Ventral Attention Network (VAN) are key neural substrates supporting this mechanism, while the SCAN network was not consistently involved during the insight formation stage. In sum, this study makes three key contributions: (1) it proposes a novel theoretical mechanism—implicit metacognitive predictive processing; (2) it establishes a quantifiable, three-stage paradigm for insight research; and (3) it outlines a dynamic neural pathway from bodily interaction to insight experience. Most importantly, the findings offer an integrative model that bridges embodied cognition, enactive cognition, and metacognitive predictive processing, providing a unified account of the Aha! experience. Full article

I report on long-term patterns of outbreak cycling in four study systems across Canada and illustrate how forecasting in these systems is highly imprecise because of complexity in the cycling and a lack of spatial synchrony amongst sample locations. I describe how a range of bottom-up effects could be generating complexity in these otherwise periodic systems. (1) The spruce budworm in Québec exhibits aperiodic and asynchronous behavior at fast time-scales, and a slow modulation of cycle peak intensity that varies regionally. (2) The forest tent caterpillar across Canada exhibits eruptive spiking behavior that is aperiodic locally, and asynchronous amongst regions, yet aggregates to produce a pattern of periodic outbreaks. In Québec, forest tent caterpillar cycles differ in the aspen-dominated northwest versus the maple-dominated southeast, with opposing patterns of cycle intensity between the two regions. (3) In Alberta, forest tent caterpillar outbreak cycles resist synchronization across a forest landscape gradient, even at very fine spatial scales, resulting in a complex pattern of cycling that defies simple forecasting techniques. (4) In the Border Lakes region of Ontario and Minnesota, where the two insect species coexist in a mixedwood landscape of hardwood and conifers, outbreak cycle intensity in each species varies spatially and temporally in response to host forest landscape structure. Much attention has been given to the effect of top-down agents in driving synchronizable population cycles. However, foliage loss, tree death, and forest succession at stem, stand, and landscape scales affect larval and adult dispersal success, and may serve to override regulatory processes that cause otherwise top-down-driven periodic, synchronized, and predictable population oscillations to become aperiodic, asynchronous, and unpredictable. Incorporating bottom-up effects at multiple spatial and temporal scales may be the key to making significant improvements in forest insect outbreak forecasting. Full article

The Anthesis-Silking Interval (ASI) is a crucial indicator of the synchrony of reproductive development in maize, reflecting its sensitivity to adverse environmental conditions such as heat stress and drought. This paper presents an automated method for detecting the maize ASI index using a field high-throughput phenotyping platform. Initially, high temporal-resolution visible-light image sequences of maize plants from the tasseling to silking stage are collected using a field rail-based phenotyping platform. Then, the training results of different sizes of YOLOv8 models on this dataset are compared to select the most suitable base model for the task of detecting maize tassels and ear silks. The chosen model is enhanced by incorporating the SENetv2 and the dual-layer routing attention mechanism BiFormer, named SEBi-YOLOv8. The SEBi-YOLOv8 model, with these combined modules, shows improvements of 2.3% and 8.2% in mAP over the original model, reaching 0.989 and 0.886, respectively. Finally, SEBi-YOLOv8 is used for the dynamic detection of maize tassels and ear silks in maize populations. The experimental results demonstrate the method’s high detection accuracy, with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.987 and an RMSE of 0.316. Based on these detection results, the ASI indices of different inbred lines are calculated and compared. Full article

Researchers have long recognized that friends tend to exhibit behaviors that are more similar to each other than to those of non-friends. In recent years, the concept of neural similarity or neural synchrony among friends has garnered significant attention. This body of research bifurcates into two primary areas of focus: the specificity of neural similarity among friends (vs. non-friends) and the situational factors that influence neural synchrony among friends. This review synthesizes the complex findings to date, highlighting consistencies and identifying gaps in the current understanding. It aims to provide a coherent overview of the nuanced interplay between social relationships and neural processes, offering valuable insights for future investigations in this field. Full article

The intensive development of nanodevices acting as two-state systems has motivated the search for nanoscale molecular structures whose long-term conformational dynamics are similar to the dynamics of bistable mechanical systems such as Euler arches and Duffing oscillators. Collective synchrony in bistable dynamics of molecular-sized systems has attracted immense attention as a potential pathway to amplify the output signals of molecular nanodevices. Recently, pyridine-furan oligomers of helical shape that are a few nanometers in size and exhibit bistable dynamics similar to a Duffing oscillator have been identified through molecular dynamics simulations. In this article, we present the case of dynamical synchronization of these bistable systems. We show that two pyridine-furan springs connected by a rigid oligomeric bridge spontaneously synchronize vibrations and stochastic resonance enhances the synchronization effect. Full article

Network oscillations are essential for all cognitive functions. Oscillatory deficits are well established in psychiatric diseases and are recapitulated in animal models. They are significantly and specifically affected by pharmacological interventions using psychoactive compounds. Dopamine D4 receptor (D4R) activation was shown to enhance gamma rhythm in freely moving rats and to specifically affect slow delta and theta oscillations in the urethane-anesthetized rat model. The goal of this study was to test the effect of D4R activation on slow network oscillations at delta and theta frequencies during wake states, potentially supporting enhanced functional connectivity during dopamine-induced attention and cognitive processing. Network activity was recorded in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus (HC) and nucleus reuniens (RE) in control conditions and after injecting the D4R agonist A-412997 (3 and 5 mg/kg; systemic administration). We found that A-412997 elicited a lasting (~40 min) wake state and drastically enhanced narrow-band delta oscillations in the PFC and RE in a dose-dependent manner. It also preferentially enhanced delta synchrony over theta coupling within the PFC-RE-HC circuit, strongly strengthening PFC-RE coupling. Thus, our findings indicate that the D4R may contribute to cognitive processes, at least in part, through acting on wake delta oscillations and that the RE, providing an essential link between the PFC and HC, plays a prominent role in this mechanism. Full article

Premature birth disrupts the continuity of maternal–newborn bodily contact, which underpins the development of physiological and behavioral support systems. Utilizing a unique cohort of mother–preterm dyads who received skin-to-skin contact (Kangaroo Care, KC) versus controls, and following them to adulthood, we examined how a touch-based neonatal intervention impacts three adult outcomes; anxiety/depressive symptoms, oxytocin, and secretory immunoglobulin A (s-IgA), a biomarker of the immune system. Consistent with dynamic systems’ theory, we found that links from KC to adult outcomes were indirect, mediated by its effects on maternal mood, child attention and executive functions, and mother–child synchrony across development. These improvements shaped adult outcomes via three mechanisms; (a) “sensitive periods”, where the infancy improvement directly links with an outcome, for instance, infant attention linked with higher oxytocin and lower s-IgA; (b) “step-by-step continuity”, where the infancy improvement triggers iterative changes across development, gradually shaping an outcome; for instance, mother–infant synchrony was stable across development and predicted lower anxiety/depressive symptoms; and (c) “inclusive mutual-influences”, describing cross-time associations between maternal, child, and dyadic factors; for instance, from maternal mood to child executive functions and back. Findings highlight the long-term impact of a birth intervention across development and provide valuable insights on the mechanisms of “developmental continuity”, among the key topics in developmental research. Full article

Individuals that pay attention to narrative stimuli show synchronized heart rate (HR) and electrodermal activity (EDA) responses. The degree to which this physiological synchrony occurs is related to attentional engagement. Factors that can influence attention, such as instructions, salience of the narrative stimulus and characteristics of the individual, affect physiological synchrony. The demonstrability of synchrony depends on the amount of data used in the analysis. We investigated how demonstrability of physiological synchrony varies with varying group size and stimulus duration. Thirty participants watched six 10 min movie clips while their HR and EDA were monitored using wearable sensors (Movisens EdaMove 4 and Wahoo Tickr, respectively). We calculated inter-subject correlations as a measure of synchrony. Group size and stimulus duration were varied by using data from subsets of the participants and movie clips in the analysis. We found that for HR, higher synchrony correlated significantly with the number of answers correct for questions about the movie, confirming that physiological synchrony is associated with attention. For both HR and EDA, with increasing amounts of data used, the percentage of participants with significant synchrony increased. Importantly, we found that it did not matter how the amount of data was increased. Increasing the group size or increasing the stimulus duration led to the same results. Initial comparisons with results from other studies suggest that our results do not only apply to our specific set of stimuli and participants. All in all, the current work can act as a guideline for future research, indicating the amount of data minimally needed for robust analysis of synchrony based on inter-subject correlations. Full article