Investigating mother-child inter-brain synchrony in a naturalistic paradigm: A functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning study.
Eur J Neurosci
; 59(6): 1386-1403, 2024 Mar.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38155106
ABSTRACT
Successful social interactions between mothers and children are hypothesised to play a significant role in a child's social, cognitive and language development. Earlier research has confirmed, through structured experimental paradigms, that these interactions could be underpinned by coordinated neural activity. Nevertheless, the extent of neural synchrony during real-life, ecologically valid interactions between mothers and their children remains largely unexplored. In this study, we investigated mother-child inter-brain synchrony using a naturalistic free-play paradigm. We also examined the relationship between neural synchrony, verbal communication patterns and personality traits to further understand the underpinnings of brain synchrony. Twelve children aged between 3 and 5 years old and their mothers participated in this study. Neural synchrony in mother-child dyads were measured bilaterally over frontal and temporal areas using functional Near Infra-red Spectroscopy (fNIRS) whilst the dyads were asked to play with child-friendly toys together (interactive condition) and separately (independent condition). Communication patterns were captured via video recordings and conversational turns were coded. Compared to the independent condition, mother-child dyads showed increased neural synchrony in the interactive condition across the prefrontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction. There was no significant relationship found between neural synchrony and turn-taking and between neural synchrony and the personality traits of each member of the dyad. Overall, we demonstrate the feasibility of measuring inter-brain synchrony between mothers and children in a naturalistic environment. These findings can inform future study designs to assess inter-brain synchrony between parents and pre-lingual children and/or children with communication needs.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Encéfalo
/
Espectroscopía Infrarroja Corta
Límite:
Child, preschool
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Eur J Neurosci
Asunto de la revista:
NEUROLOGIA
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido