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Dikker S, Brito NH, Dumas G. It takes a village: A multi-brain approach to studying multigenerational family communication. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2024; 65:101330. [PMID: 38091864 PMCID: PMC10716709 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2023] [Revised: 08/27/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 12/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Grandparents play a critical role in child rearing across the globe. Yet, there is a shortage of neurobiological research examining the relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren. We employ multi-brain neurocomputational models to simulate how changes in neurophysiological processes in both development and healthy aging affect multigenerational inter-brain coupling - a neural marker that has been linked to a range of socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes. The simulations suggest that grandparent-child interactions may be paired with higher inter-brain coupling than parent-child interactions, raising the possibility that the former may be more advantageous under certain conditions. Critically, this enhancement of inter-brain coupling for grandparent-child interactions is more pronounced in tri-generational interactions that also include a parent, which may speak to findings that grandparent involvement in childrearing is most beneficial if the parent is also an active household member. Together, these findings underscore that a better understanding of the neurobiological basis of cross-generational interactions is vital, and that such knowledge can be helpful in guiding interventions that consider the whole family. We advocate for a community neuroscience approach in developmental social neuroscience to capture the diversity of child-caregiver relationships in real-world settings.
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Minagawa Y, Hata M, Yamamoto E, Tsuzuki D, Morimoto S. Inter-brain synchrony during mother-infant interactive parenting in 3-4-month-old infants with and without an elevated likelihood of autism spectrum disorder. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:11609-11622. [PMID: 37885119 PMCID: PMC10724871 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Revised: 09/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Maternal bonding for mammalian infants is critical for their survival. Additionally, it is important for human infants' development into social creatures. However, despite the ample neurobiological evidence of attachment for the mother's brain, the interplay of this system in infants is poorly understood. We aimed to identify the neural substrates of synchrony in mothers and infants under three interactive conditions and compare the differences between groups with (n = 16) and without (n = 71) an elevated likelihood of autism spectrum disorder by examining the inter-brain synchrony between mothers and their 3-4-month-old infants. Mother-infant hyperscanning with functional near-infrared spectroscopy was performed during breastfeeding and while each of the mother and experimenter was holding the infants. The results showed almost no group differences, with both groups demonstrating the strongest inter-brain coupling for breastfeeding. The cerebral foci underlying these couplings differed between mothers and infants: the ventral prefrontal cortex, focusing on the right orbitofrontal cortex, in the mother and the left temporoparietal junction in the infant were chiefly involved in connecting the two brains. Furthermore, these synchronizations revealed many significant correlations with behavioral measures, including subsequent language development. The maternal reward-motivational system and the infant's elementary mentalization system seem to underlie mother-infant coupling during breastfeeding.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yasuyo Minagawa
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, 4-1-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8521, Japan
- Human Biology-Microbiome-Quantum Research Center (WPI-Bio2Q), Keio University, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan
- Center for Advanced Research of Logic and Sensibility, Global Research Institute, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan
| | - Masahiro Hata
- Center for Advanced Research of Logic and Sensibility, Global Research Institute, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan
| | - Eriko Yamamoto
- Center for Advanced Research of Logic and Sensibility, Global Research Institute, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan
| | - Daisuke Tsuzuki
- Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Kochi University, 2-5-1 Akebono-cho, kochi-shi, Kochi 780-8072, Japan
| | - Satoshi Morimoto
- Center for Advanced Research of Logic and Sensibility, Global Research Institute, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan
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