Dance has traditionally been viewed from a Eurocentric perspective as a mode of self-expression that involves the human body moving through space, performed for the purposes of art, and viewed by an audience. In this Hypothesis and Theory article, we synthesize findings from anthropology, sociology, psychology, dance pedagogy, and neuroscience to propose The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance, which states that humans dance to enhance both intra- and inter-brain synchrony. We outline a neurocentric definition of dance, which suggests that dance involves (...) neurobehavioral processes in seven distinct areas including sensory, motor, cognitive, social, emotional, rhythmic, and creative. We explore The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance through several avenues. First, we examine evolutionary theories of dance, which suggest that dance drives interpersonal coordination. Second, we examine fundamental movement patterns, which emerge throughout development and are omnipresent across cultures of the world. Third, we examine how each of the seven neurobehaviors increases intra- and inter-brain synchrony. Fourth, we examine the neuroimaging literature on dance to identify the brain regions most involved in and affected by dance. The findings presented here support our hypothesis that we engage in dance for the purpose of intrinsic reward, which as a result of dance-induced increases in neural synchrony, leads to enhanced interpersonal coordination. This hypothesis suggests that dance may be helpful to repattern oscillatory activity, leading to clinical improvements in autism spectrum disorder and other disorders with oscillatory activity impairments. Finally, we offer suggestions for future directions and discuss the idea that our consciousness can be redefined not just as an individual process but as a shared experience that we can positively influence by dancing together. (shrink)

“Dalla filosofia dell’azione alla filosofia della mente” è stato il percorso di alcuni filosofi di nazionalità varia degli anni 1980 – come Paul Churchland negli Stati Uniti o Ansgar Beckermann in Germania – che prima si sono interessati agli aspetti più teorici nella filosofia dell’azione, come il modo di funzionamento delle azioni e la loro spiegazione scientifica, e che poi, con l’arrivo e la diffusione dei personal computers e delle scienze cognitive, hanno ampliato e approfondito questo interesse di ricerca e (...) si sono dedicati alla filosofia della mente più in generale e in particolare alla spiegazione scientifica e filosofica del mentale. Sandro Nannini faceva parte di questo movimento ed è stato uno tra gli inizialmente pochi filosofi italiani che si sono occupati di questi argomenti; successivamente ne è diventato uno dei maggiori specialisti in Italia, proponendo una sua particolare versione di naturalizzazione del mentale. Subordinata agli interessi teorici è stata la sua iniziativa accademica di fondare e promuovere il primo dottorato italiano di ricerca in Scienze Cognitive. Il presente volume tratta dell’opera di Sandro Nannini in contributi che sono riflessioni più o meno specifiche sulle differenti tappe del suo percorso, affrontando temi come l’analisi dell'azione, il libero arbitrio, la discussione di Nannini di vari classici della filosofia, la tendenza del naturalismo a dissolvere la filosofia in un enciclopedismo empirico e la sfida dei qualia e della fenomenologia all’approccio naturalistico alla mente. Il volume contiene inoltre un saggio dello stesso Sandro Nannini, nel quale espone l’ultimo sviluppo della sua filosofia della mente nonché le risposte agli interventi degli altri autori: Mario De Caro, Sara Dellantonio, Rosaria Egidi, Roberta Lanfredini, Christoph Lumer, Paolo Parrini, Pietro Perconti, Claudio Pizzi, Emanuela Scribano e Giuseppe Varnier. (shrink)

Major events of the cell cycle—DNA synthesis, mitosis and cell division—are regulated by a complex network of protein interactions that control the activities of cyclin‐dependent kinases. The network can be modeled by a set of nonlinear differential equations and its behavior predicted by numerical simulation. Computer simulations are necessary for detailed quantitative comparisons between theory and experiment, but they give little insight into the qualitative dynamics of the control system and how molecular interactions determine the fundamental physiological properties of cell (...) replication. To that end, bifurcation diagrams are a useful analytical tool, providing new views of the dynamical organization of the cell cycle, the role of checkpoints in assuring the integrity of the genome, and the abnormal regulation of cell cycle events in mutants. These claims are demonstrated by an analysis of cell cycle regulation in fission yeast. BioEssays 24:1095–1109, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The article, first, reconstructs and criticizes Sandro Nannini’s incompatibilistic concept of freedom of decision and, second, develops a compatibilistic alternative, a synthesis of a rationalistic and an autonomous approach. Nannini justifies his conception primarily from a naturalistic point of view: it reflects our sense of agency, so he says. This is criticized as empirically wrong and methodically mistaken: The theory of freedom of decision is, actually, normative; it is about good decisions; naturalism cannot establish normative claims. The alternative is based, (...) methodically, on an idealizing hermeneutics, which tries to reconstruct the point of free decisions, and then justifies the resulting concept practically: Free decisions, conceived in this way, realize optimally our autonomous desires. (shrink)

Body movements, autonomic arousal, and electroencephalograms of group members are often coordinated or synchronized with those of other group members. Linear and nonlinear measures of synchronization have been developed for pairs of individuals, but little work has been done on measures of synchronization for groups. We define a new synchronization coefficient, SE, for a group based on pairwise correlations in time series data and employing the notions of a group driver, who most drives the group’s responses, and empath, who is (...) most driven by the group. SE is developed here in the context of emotional synchronization based on galvanic skin response time series. A simulation study explores its properties, the balance between strong versus weak autocorrelational effects, transfer, group size, and direct versus oscillatory functions. Distributions of SE are not affected by group size up to 16 members. Norms for interpreting the coefficient are presented along with directions for new research. (shrink)

The stunning possibility of “reprogramming” differentiated somatic cells to express a pluripotent stem cell phenotype (iPS, induced pluripotent stem cell) and the “ground state” character of pluripotency reveal fundamental features of cell fate regulation that lie beyond existing paradigms. The rarity of reprogramming events appears to contradict the robustness with which the unfathomably complex phenotype of stem cells can reliably be generated. This apparent paradox, however, is naturally explained by the rugged “epigenetic landscape” with valleys representing “preprogrammed” attractor states that (...) emerge from the dynamical constraints of the gene regulatory network. This article provides a pedagogical primer to the fundamental principles of gene regulatory networks as integrated dynamic systems and reviews recent insights in gene expression noise and fate determination, thereby offering a formal framework that may help us to understand why cell fate reprogramming events are inherently rare and yet so robust. (shrink)