Acculturation is associated with two-brain neural coupling during interaction in ethnic minorities

Vancouver Convention Centre 

Individuals with a history of migration and their offspring must cope with a variety of post-migration challenges, including an increased health risk for psychiatric disorders. Current research assumes interpersonal difficulties to cause social stress and thus lead to susceptibility to mental illness – possibly mediated through difficulties in communication or prejudice from the host side. However, neuroimaging studies have only recently begun to investigate interpersonal mechanisms in multiple communicating subjects and to develop novel readouts for functional brain responses in social neuroscience and psychiatry towards biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment (Meyer-Lindenberg and Tost 2012, Schilbach 2016).
We have previously provided methods for the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying interpersonal relationships (fMRI-hyperscanning; Bilek, Ruf et al. 2015, Bilek et al., submitted). In this study, these biomarkers of human social interaction are applied within a cross-cultural setting.