Mentalization is the ability to make sense of our own and others’ mental states. It is an essential skill for successfully navigating social interactions and relationships. The neurobiological basis of mentalization has traditionally been investigated by showing isolated participants pictures or videos containing social information whilst measuring their individual brain activity. Although foundational, such an approach has a major limitation because “social cognition is fundamentally different when we are in interaction with others rather than merely observing them” (Schilbach, 2013). Therefore, there has been a recent transition towards hyperscanning, which consists of simultaneously recording two (or more) participants’ brain activities during direct and real-time social interaction to derive a measure of interpersonal neural synchrony. Hyperscanning is the main research method as part of relational neuroscience, a new research area that employs a developmental and lifespan perspective by combining interpersonal neural synchrony with the history and quality of relationships. Its goal is to study both the causes and consequences of inter-brain dynamics as they occur across different groups, contexts and time.
Within relational neuroscience, one prominent role of interpersonal neural synchrony for social interactions and relationships is associated with mentalization as part of so-called mutual prediction, i.e., the understanding and predicting of both one’s own and another person’s behaviour. Such an assumption is based on findings from a range of hyperscanning studies that have reliably shown increased interpersonal neural synchrony during interactive tasks requiring mentalization, like cooperative problem-solving and free verbal conversation. Interestingly, increases in interpersonal neural synchrony related to mentalization appear to be more prominent when participants are in a close and intimate relationship with one another, like parents with their children and romantic partners, as opposed to friends and strangers.
However, several open questions remain about the exact nature and involvement of interpersonal neural synchrony within such contexts. For example, does increased interpersonal neural synchrony related to mentalization represent a causal mechanism or is it a mere facilitator? Is increased interpersonal neural synchrony associated with mentalization always an indicator of better mentalization performance and outcomes? And how does interpersonal neural synchrony more generally relate to synchrony in behaviour, physiology and endocrinology as a measure of overall social interaction and relationship quality? More research is needed to clarify these issues, especially when applying insights derived from relational neuroscience and hyperscanning within a therapeutic and clinical context.
Martin DEBBANÉ — Geneva, Switzerland
David RUDRAUF — Paris, France
Dr Pascal Vrtička PhD, FHEA – Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer)
Centre for Brain Science | Department of Psychology | University of Essex | Wivenhoe Park | Colchester CO4 3SQ | UK
Thursday 28 May 2026 – Workshop 4 – 15:45 – 17:15 – Amphithéâtre Farabeuf