Mu-rhythm

The new format of online communications, which came to us during the pandemic, has become firmly entrenched in our lives, especially in the fields of education and business. On the one hand, we have received more freedom and opportunities, on the other hand, many are dissatisfied with the remote format of interaction. Most are inclined to believe that the live format of communication allows you to better understand and feel the interlocutor, and gives the speaker the opportunity to feel the audience, feedback from it and build a more emotional and memorable report. All this is due to the fact that in addition to the verbal information that people share when communicating, we read the flow of visual and auditory non-verbal information, which creates a complete picture of the interlocutor’s perception. It has been shown that in the perception of visual non-verbal information, an important role is played by the mirror system of the brain and the motor and sensorimotor areas of the cortex, where information about the movements, gestures, posture and facial expressions of the interlocutor is projected.

In experiments on observing and performing social gestures, the level of mu rhythm suppression is associated with the activity of the mirror neuron system (MNS), which is responsible for the perception and understanding of nonverbal signals in social communication. In turn, while MNS activity may be associated primarily with empathy, it is also associated with other psychological and demographic factors affecting the effectiveness of cortical neural networks. In this study, we verified the influence of empathy, state and trait anxiety levels, presence and number of children, and age on the mu-suppression level in 40 women. We used 32-channel EEG recorded during observation, and synchronous execution of various hand movements. The ICA infomax method was used for decomposing and selecting the left hemisphere component of the mu-rhythm. Mu-suppression was higher in women with one child, with higher levels of empathy, and with lower anxiety levels. It is possible that MNS activity is stronger in women during parental care.