Investigating Social Disengagement with Brain

Synchrony: An EEG Hyperscanning Approach

"Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation."
- Margaret Wheatley

James K. Bradshaw Bernacchi

James Bradshaw is a PhD researcher in neuroengineering at the Lopez Valdes Lab in Trinity College Dublin, with an interdisciplinary academic background. After completing his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy and a Master’s degree in Cell and Molecular Biology, he transitioned into doctoral research focused on EEG-based hyperscanning and social neuroscience.

His research interests centre on neuroscience and the development of technologies to better understand human communication and social engagement. His current work explores how EEG-based approaches can provide insight into the neural mechanisms underlying social interaction, with future interests in brain–machine interfaces, neurobionics, and assistive technologies.

Beyond his academic work, James is passionate about travelling and experiencing different cultures, an interest closely connected to his curiosity about how people interact and form social bonds across contexts. He has also served as co-chair of the IEEE EMBS Student Chapter across two academic years, contributing to student leadership, multidisciplinary collaboration, and networking across engineering, medicine, biology, and neuroscience.

Project mission

Understanding the neural basis of social engagement to develop reliable, objective, and non-pharmacological tools for monitoring and improving social connectedness, using EEG hyperscanning to capture brain synchrony during social therapies in clinical populations.

Research Focus

Clinical Populations — People with Intellectual Disability

Social disengagement is a critical yet underexplored challenge in people with intellectual disability. We study inter-brain synchrony during group Cognitive Stimulation Therapy in this population, aiming to develop objective neural markers that reflect therapy efficacy, going beyond behavioural observation.

Tasks Matter — Social Synchrony Depends on What You Do Together

Inter-brain synchrony is not uniform: it is shaped by whether an activity is active or passive, collaborative or solo, verbal or non-verbal. By comparing synchrony across different task types within CST sessions and in controlled conditions, we can understand which therapeutic activities most robustly engage the social brain.

Understanding Risk Factors — Hearing Impairment and Social Isolation

Hearing loss and social isolation are established risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Studying brain synchrony replicating these conditions allows us to understand how disrupted social engagement alters neural coupling.

Advancing Methods — Towards Unobtrusive, Naturalistic EEG

Scalp EEG allows rigorous hyperscanning in controlled settings. For more naturalistic recording, we have characterised a commercial in-ear EEG device as a candidate system for capturing social neural dynamics outside the lab in future research.

Output

Publications

EEG Hyperscanning in Intellectual Disability: A Scoping Review with Implications for Cognitive Stimulation Therapy

Pavithra P, Bradshaw Bernacchi JK, Ahmed S, McDermott G, McCarron M, McCallion P, McGlinchey E and Lopez Valdes A (2026) Front. Neuroergonomics 7:1757738. doi: 10.3389/fnrgo.2026.1757738

Read It

Electrophysiological Characterisation of Commercial In-Ear EEG Devices

J. K. Bradshaw Bernacchi and A. Lopez Valdes, 2025 47th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2025, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/EMBC58623.2025.11252639

Read It

Conferences

Oral Presentation