356 — Hyperbrain network properties of guitarists playing in quartet

This research looked at how musicians’ brain activity synced or passed out of synchronization over the course of group playing. Specifically, the authors monitored a guitar quartet via EEG and looked for ways in which the brains’ activity-based connectivity maps correlated over time. Each guitar player wore a 28-cap electrode array, was recorded via one microphone each, and was recorded on video as they played “Libertango” by Astor Piazolla and “Comme un Tango” by Patrick Roux.

This multibrain monitoring (dubbed a “hyperbrain”) study revealed that — much like how musicians will body-sway in synchrony with the music and with each other — brain activity patterns appeared to synchronize in time with the music and the complexity and type of the music.

The researchers used correlations in this measured activity to design weighted graphs of interbrain and intrabrain “connections” which can be used to determine the statistical significance of brain-to-brain correlations.

I’m out of my comfort zone with this research so I’m not totally sure how best to interpret the results. But it appears that intrabrain phase synchronization is indicative of teaming or cooperative work — and perhaps this can be leveraged to quantify how well a group is collaborating.