#sfn16

[snapzuhealth]

This year’s Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference was rich with emerging advances in the detection of neuropathological changes that occur during Alzheimer’s disease. The cutting edge of this research was presented at the nanosymposium on Molecular and Neuroimaging Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease Saturday afternoon. From genetics to brain structure to molecular markers, this session highlighted the diversity of tools researchers are employing to better understand the neural effects of both normal and pathological aging. via Snapzu : Health & Body

[houseofmind]

On Interpersonal Space 

Space between people creates and defines the social dynamics of our interactions. For example, we can use space to signal threat, aggression or even intimacy. Furthermore, even slight individual differences (i.e. social anxiety, vigilant vs avoidant phenotypes, sensory sensitivity, culture, sex) can have effects on how we use interpersonal space. Briefly, there are 4 types of space that are categorized differently based on intimacy and proximity: intimate, personal, social, public. 

The diagram above was one that I saw Anat Perry- one of the speakers at today’s Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN)- show in her talk. I was really fascinated by this because even as a neuroscientist who is interested in social behavior (see PhD papers), my bias was towards actual contact time or time spent in a social zone. I didn’t even know that proxemics was a thing! 

I am just becoming familiar with her work, but let’s just say that has studied determinants of interpersonal distance in healthy controls, autism spectrum disorder patients and found a role for the orbitofrontal cortex in regulating interpersonal distance. For instance, Perry et. al 2016 found that only patients with OFC damage showed abnormal interpersonal distance preferences, which were significantly different from both controls and patients with dorsolateral prefrontal damage. The comfortable distances these patients chose with strangers were significantly closer than the other groups and resembled distances normally used with close others.