1)浙江大学心理与行为科学系, 杭州 310058;2)浙江大学脑机智能全国重点实验室,杭州 310058;3)浙江大学全省脑智发展与心理健康重点实验室,杭州 310058
国家自然科学基金(62577047,62207025),中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金(226-2025-00127)和浙江省自然科学基金(LMS25C090002)资助项目。
1)Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China;2)The State Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China;3)Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development and Mental Health, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
This work was supported by grants from The National Natural Science Foundation of China (62577047, 62207025), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (226-2025-00127), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LMS25C090002).
传统的超扫描技术无法直接揭示社会互动与脑间同步之间的因果关系。群脑刺激技术通过对交互个体特定脑区实施同步的非侵入性经颅电刺激(transcranial electrical stimulation,tES),主动操纵脑间同步水平,为因果机制的解析提供了全新的实验途径。群脑刺激中,经颅交流电刺激(transcranial alternating current stimulation,tACS)基于“跨脑夹带”机制,通过特定频率和相位施加交流电直接诱导多脑振荡的协同活动,从而优化跨脑信息传递,经颅直流电刺激(transcranial direct current stimulation,tDCS)则通过调节社会脑区的兴奋性,间接调控神经信息处理与行为协同。实证研究表明,群脑刺激能有效提升社会协作中的行为同步性、优化人际沟通效率以及增强社会学习效果,在多项研究中显示出对各类互动表现的改善作用。群脑刺激通过多层级机制影响社会互动:首先调节脑间同步水平,继而促进表征对齐、降低预测误差,并最终驱动互动行为。未来研究应致力于推动刺激参数标准化,提升复杂社会互动情境下的生态效度,并加速相关技术在教育优化、临床干预和组织管理等领域的应用转化,推动人际神经科学迈向因果解析与精准干预的新阶段。
Deciphering how the brain enables humans to interact, coordinate, and learn from one another remains one of the most compelling challenges in contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Social interaction is a dynamic, reciprocal process. Over the past decade, hyperscanning research has consistently identified inter-brain synchronization (IBS) as a neural signature accompanying successful cooperation, communication, joint attention, and social learning. However, the correlational nature of these findings leaves a critical question unresolved: does IBS cause better social interaction, or does it merely reflect it? While traditional hyperscanning paradigms are powerful in revealing inter-brain neural dynamics “in the wild”, they cannot on their own determine the direction of causality. This gap has motivated the emergence of multibrain stimulation (MBS)—a new generation of causal inference tools designed to actively manipulate neural coupling across individuals. MBS leverages non-invasive transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) to modulate neural activity simultaneously in two or more interacting brains. Unlike conventional tES applied to a single individual, MBS employs coordinated stimulation parameters, such as synchronized waveforms or matched frequencies, to directly perturb the neural mechanisms underlying social interaction. By providing an exogenous, precisely controlled intervention on IBS, MBS satisfies interventionist criteria for establishing causal relationships: researchers can test whether modifying inter-brain synchrony leads to predictable changes in behavior, communication, or shared understanding. This capability represents a fundamental methodological shift, transforming interpersonal neuroscience from a largely descriptive discipline into one capable of mechanistic inquiry. The biophysical underpinnings of MBS vary depending on the specific modality used. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) functions through cross-brain entrainment: when two individuals receive oscillatory currents matched in frequency and phase (e.g., theta-, beta-, or gamma-band stimulation), their endogenous neural rhythms tend to align with the exogenous signal and, consequently, with each other. This alignment effectively instantiates principles of the communication through coherence (CTC) framework, which posits that coherent oscillations optimize information exchange by synchronizing periods of excitability across neural populations. Meanwhile, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) exerts its influence by altering the excitability of targeted cortical regions in a polarity-dependent manner, thereby tuning the computational readiness of social-cognitive hubs such as the temporoparietal junction, superior temporal cortex, or inferior frontal gyrus. A growing body of empirical evidence demonstrates that such manipulations yield robust behavioral effects. In joint motor tasks, in-phase tACS enhances interpersonal coordination by aligning motor preparation dynamics, reducing temporal variability, and enabling individuals to anticipate each other’s actions more effectively. In communication and social learning contexts, MBS targeting high-order integrative regions promotes conceptual alignment, accelerates knowledge transfer, and supports more efficient encoding of shared representations. Notably, the effects of MBS often persist beyond the stimulation period, suggesting short-term plasticity in cross-brain networks. Post-stimulation improvements in synchronization and coordination indicate that MBS may temporarily recalibrate the neural architecture underlying social interaction. However, these benefits exhibit strong parameter specificity—precise phase relationships (e.g., 0° in-phase versus 180° anti-phase) and frequency matching are essential for generating reliable behavioral outcomes. Taken together, MBS represents a transformative step toward establishing the causal principles of human sociality and offers a new avenue for probing how multiple brains become functionally aligned during interaction.
陈翰林,李琦,李媛媛,潘亚峰.基于经颅电刺激的群脑刺激对社会互动的调控[J].生物化学与生物物理进展,2026,53(1):105-116
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