Dancing in Your Head: An Interdisciplinary Review

Effects of player-video game interaction on the mental effort of older adults with the use of electroencephalography and NASA-TLX

While player-video game interaction appears to affect older adults in gaming, there is limited knowledge regarding the cognitive demands associated with the anticipation of performing a button press, specifically focusing on the input and game elements relation (I/E relation) in game environments. The study aims to investigate the effects of lateral and rotational displacement amplitudes of game elements, triggered by a single button-press, on the cognitive effort of older adults. Both subjective and objective measurement methods were employed to assess these effects. A total of 48 older adults participated in three casual video game tasks encompassing lateral and rotational displacements at varying I/E relations (low, medium, and high). Results obtained from the NASA Task Load Index and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements revealed significant differences between the I/E relations. Specifically, the subjective rating of cognitive demand among older players was significantly impacted by a small rotation angle associated with a button press, leading to increased mental, physical, and temporal demands, along with decreased performance. Surprisingly, the analysis of EEG data, particularly the theta-alpha ratio, revealed significant interaction effects of I/E relations, button press type, and game type on the cognitive demand required during gameplay. These findings offer practical implications and point towards future avenues for developing player-video game interactions that are more cognitively friendly for older players in gaming environments.

Embodied metacognition as strengthened functional connection between neural correlates of metacognition and dance in dancers: exploring creativity implications

Introduction

Dance education fosters embodied metacognition, enhancing student's creativity. This study examines the crucial role of functional connectivity (FC) between the neural correlates of metacognition (NCM) and dance (NCD) as the neurological foundation for dancers' embodied metacognition. The investigation also explores whether these consolidated FCs inform the general creativity in dancers.

Methods

The research involved 29 dancers and 28 non-dancer controls. The study examined resting-state connections of the NCM through seed-based FC analysis. Correlation analyses were employed to investigate the connections between the targeted NCM-NCD FCs, initiated from the a priori NCM seed, and general creativity.

Results

Dancers demonstrated heightened FC between NCM and NCD compared to non-dancer controls. The targeted regions included the putamen, globus pallidus, posterior cerebellum, and anterior insula of NCD. The dancers exhibited higher originality scores. In dancers, the enhanced FC showed a negative correlation with originality and a positive correlation with flexibility. Conversely, the controls exhibited no significant correlations.

Discussion

Extended dance training enhances the NCM-NCD connection signifying embodied metacognition. This interconnectedness may serve as the neural predisposition for fostering general creativity performance in dancers. Dancers with heightened levels of originality could leverage the relatively weaker NCM-NCD FCs to facilitate better integration and coordination of creative cognitive processes. Our findings suggest that the consolidated functional connections as sculpted by domain-specific training may inform general creativity.

One hundred years of neurosciences in the arts and humanities, a bibliometric review

BACKGROUND

Neuroscientific approaches have historically triggered changes in the conception of creativity and artistic experience, which can be revealed by noting the intersection of these fields of study in terms of variables such as global trends, methodologies, objects of study, or application of new technologies; however, these neuroscientific approaches are still often considered as disciplines detached from the arts and humanities. In this light, the question arises as to what evidence the history of neurotechnologies provides at the intersection of creativity and aesthetic experience.

METHODS

We conducted a century-long bibliometric analysis of key parameters in multidisciplinary studies published in the Scopus database. Screening techniques based on the PRISMA method and advanced data analysis techniques were applied to 3612 documents metadata from the years 1922 to 2022. We made graphical representations of the results applying algorithmic and clusterization processes to keywords and authors relationships.

RESULTS

From the analyses, we found a) a shift from a personality-focus quantitative analysis to a field-focus qualitative approach, considering topics such as art, perception, aesthetics and beauty; b) The locus of interest in fMRI-supported neuroanatomy has been shifting toward EEG technologies and models based on machine learning and deep learning in recent years; c) four main clusters were identified in the study approaches: humanistic, creative, neuroaesthetic and medical; d) the neuroaesthetics cluster is the most central and relevant, mediating between creativity and neuroscience; e) neuroaesthetics and neuroethics are two of the neologism that better characterizes the challenges that this convergence of studies will have in the next years.

CONCLUSIONS

Through a longitudinal analysis, we evidenced the great influence that neuroscience is having on the thematic direction of the arts and humanities. The perspective presented shows how this field is being consolidated and helps to define it as a new opportunity of great potential for future researchers.

Trait representation of embodied cognition in dancers pivoting on the extended mirror neuron system: a resting-state fMRI study

Introduction

Dance is an art form that integrates the body and mind through movement. Dancers develop exceptional physical and mental abilities that involve various neurocognitive processes linked to embodied cognition. We propose that dancers' primary trait representation is movement-actuated and relies on the extended mirror neuron system (eMNS).

Methods

A total of 29 dancers and 28 non-dancer controls were recruited. A hierarchical approach of intra-regional and inter-regional functional connectivity (FC) analysis was adopted to probe trait-like neurodynamics within and between regions in the eMNS during rest. Correlation analyses were employed to examine the associations between dance training, creativity, and the FC within and between different brain regions.

Results

Within the eMNS, dancers exhibited increased intra-regional FC in various brain regions compared to non-dancers. These regions include the left inferior frontal gyrus, left ventral premotor cortex, left anterior insula, left posterior cerebellum (crus II), and bilateral basal ganglia (putamen and globus pallidus). Dancers also exhibited greater intrinsic inter-regional FC between the cerebellum and the core/limbic mirror areas within the eMNS. In dancers, there was a negative correlation observed between practice intensity and the intrinsic FC within the eMNS involving the cerebellum and basal ganglia. Additionally, FCs from the basal ganglia to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were found to be negatively correlated with originality in dancers.

Discussion

Our results highlight the proficient communication within the cortical-subcortical hierarchy of the eMNS in dancers, linked to the automaticity and cognitive-motor interactions acquired through training. Altered functional couplings in the eMNS can be regarded as a unique neural signature specific to virtuoso dancers, which might predispose them for skilled dancing performance, perception, and creation.

The Neuroscience of Dance: A Conceptual Framework and Systematic Review

Ancient and culturally universal, dance pervades many areas of life and has multiple benefits. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework and systematic review, as a guide for researching the neuroscience of dance. We identified relevant articles following PRISMA guidelines, and summarised and evaluated all original results. We identified avenues for future research in: the interactive and collective aspects of dance; groove; dance performance; dance observation; and dance therapy. Furthermore, the interactive and collective aspects of dance constitute a vital part of the field but have received almost no attention from a neuroscientific perspective so far. Dance and music engage overlapping brain networks, including common regions involved in perception, action, and emotion. In music and dance, rhythm, melody, and harmony are processed in an active, sustained pleasure cycle giving rise to action, emotion, and learning, led by activity in specific hedonic brain networks. The neuroscience of dance is an exciting field, which may yield information concerning links between psychological processes and behaviour, human flourishing, and the concept of eudaimonia.

Brain Activity of Professional Dancers During Audiovisual Stimuli Exposure: A Systematic Review

Many studies have shown the effect of dance to the brain. It seems that long-term practice modulates brain plasticity and visuomotor skills, as it activates the Action Observation Network (AON). The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate potential differences in the brain activity (visuomotor skills) between professional dancers and non-dancer adults, measured by electroencephalography (EEG), during the observation of an individual who is dancing (video dance stimuli). This literature search was conducted from February to June 2022, according to the PRISMA guidelines, in the PubMed database using advanced search, mesh terms, and extensive manual search. The included articles were published in English. Specifically, case-control studies were selected, which used healthy adults, professional dancers, and non-dancers as participants, who were exposed to video dance clips and measured by EEG. The articles were excluded if they were based on different type of study, unhealthy population, control group with athletic background, different type of stimuli (rhythmic), or different type of task and procedure. The ratings of quality of evidence were conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) critical appraisal tool. Five case-control studies were included with 193 participants in total, 87% females. The participating groups of professional dancers (n = 12-25) had mean age 25.14 years, with at least 9-19 years of professional training, whereas control groups had the same sample size, mean age of 24.14 years, and no experience in dancing. Most of the studies presented high methodological quality. All studies showed significant differences in dancers' brain activity, especially regarding the visuomotor skills. The results showed faster activation of AON demonstrated by higher P300 at the frontocentral regions and increased sensitivity of the occipital temporal cortex. Dancers could cope easier with familiar-unfamiliar and effortful-effortless movements. They also demonstrated faster alpha band peak frequency, stronger synchrony over the bands theta, beta, gamma during the audiovisual stimuli, and the ability to encode faster the visual information. The results demonstrate that dancers had better visuomotor skills suggesting dance-enhanced neuroplasticity, as professional dancers processed their actions easier. Dance, which includes visuomotor tasks, could help in prevention, therapy, and rehabilitation of neurodegenerative diseases or movement disorders.

From Visual Perception to Aesthetic Appeal: Brain Responses to Aesthetically Appealing Natural Landscape Movies

During aesthetically appealing visual experiences, visual content provides a basis for computation of affectively tinged representations of aesthetic value. How this happens in the brain is largely unexplored. Using engaging video clips of natural landscapes, we tested whether cortical regions that respond to perceptual aspects of an environment (e.g., spatial layout, object content and motion) were directly modulated by rated aesthetic appeal. Twenty-four participants watched a series of videos of natural landscapes while being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reported both continuous ratings of enjoyment (during the videos) and overall aesthetic judgments (after each video). Although landscape videos engaged a greater expanse of high-level visual cortex compared to that observed for images of landscapes, independently localized category-selective visual regions (e.g., scene-selective parahippocampal place area and motion-selective hMT+) were not significantly modulated by aesthetic appeal. Rather, a whole-brain analysis revealed modulations by aesthetic appeal in ventral (collateral sulcus) and lateral (middle occipital sulcus, posterior middle temporal gyrus) clusters that were adjacent to scene and motion selective regions. These findings suggest that aesthetic appeal per se is not represented in well-characterized feature- and category-selective regions of visual cortex. Rather, we propose that the observed activations reflect a local transformation from a feature-based visual representation to a representation of "elemental affect," computed through information-processing mechanisms that detect deviations from an observer's expectations. Furthermore, we found modulation by aesthetic appeal in subcortical reward structures but not in regions of the default-mode network (DMN) nor orbitofrontal cortex, and only weak evidence for associated changes in functional connectivity. In contrast to other visual aesthetic domains, aesthetically appealing interactions with natural landscapes may rely more heavily on comparisons between ongoing stimulation and well-formed representations of the natural world, and less on top-down processes for resolving ambiguities or assessing self-relevance.