Bonding Neuroscience Lab

A brand new paper:

Some people are Super Synchronizers- synchronize better regardless of partners or tasks

Super Synchronizers are more attractive

Humans prefer romantic partners who can synchronize

Matan Cohen

Social and nonsocial synchrony are interrelated and romantically attractive - Communications Psychology Social and nonsocial synchrony are interdependent and can increase perceived attraction. Some individuals have a greater propensity for synchrony, and such Super Synchronizers are rated as the most attractive partners.

Why are we attracted to some people and not to others?

A new study conducted in our lab finds that when a man and a woman synchronize their physiology and dynamically tune their behavior to one another during a first date, they are romantically and sexually attracted to one another.

The research was conducted by Lior Zeevi, Nathalie klein-Sellle, Yuval Hart and Shir Atzil.

See full article here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08582-6

טענה מקובלת היא שהאדם נולד עם ידע חברתי, כלומר שיש לנו מנגונים מוחיים מולדים ההופכים אותנו ליצורים חברתיים. ד"ר שיר אציל והדוקטורנטית ליאור זאבי מציעות תיאוריה לפיה חיות לומדות להיות חברתיות אם הן לא מסוגלות לשרוד ותלויות בפרטים אחרים מאותו המין בשביל ויסות מערכות הגוף הבסיסיות. כלומר, החברתיות היא ידע נרכש.

המאמר המלא בתגובה הראשונה

Mothers are highly responsive to their offspring. In non-human mammals, mothers secrete dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in response to their pups. Yet, it is still unknown which aspect of the offspring behavior elicits dopaminergic responses in mothers. Here, we tested whether infants’ affective signals elicit dopaminergic responses in the NAcc of human mothers. First, we conducted a behavioral analysis on videos of infants’ free play and quantified the affective signals infants spontaneously communicated. Then, we presented the same videos to mothers during a magnetic resonance-positron emission tomography scan. We traced the binding of [11C]raclopride to free D2/3-type receptors to assess maternal dopaminergic responses during the infant videos. When mothers observed videos with many infant signals during the scan, they had less [11C]raclopride binding in the right NAcc. Less [11C]raclopride binding indicates that less D2/3 receptors were free, possibly due to increased endogenous dopamine responses to infants’ affective signals. We conclude that NAcc D2/3 receptors are involved in maternal responsiveness to affective signals of human infants. D2/3 receptors have been associated with maternal responsiveness in nonhuman animals. This evidence supports a similar mechanism in humans and specifies infant-behaviors that activate the maternal dopaminergic system, with implications for social neuroscience, development and psychopathology.

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