Zhang Wenrui, He Ting, Zhou Nan, Duan Lian, Chi Peilian, Lin Xiuyun
Institute of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau, China.
Neuroimage. 2024 Aug 15;297:120736. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120736. Epub 2024 Jul 14.
Interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) between mothers and children responds to the temporal similarity of brain signals in joint behavior between dyadic partners and is considered an important neural indicator of the formation of adaptive social interaction bonds. Parent-child interactions are particularly important for the development and maintenance of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in children, but the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are unknown. Therefore, in the current study we measured INS between mothers and children in interactions by using simultaneous functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), and explored its association with ODD symptoms in children. Seventy-two mother-child dyads were recruited to participate in the study, including 35 children with ODD and 37 healthy children to be used as a control. Each mother-child dyad was measured for neural activity in frontal, parietal, and temporal lobe regions while completing free-play as well as positive, and negative topic discussion tasks. We used Phase-locked value to calculate the synchrony strength and then used the K-means algorithm and k-space based alignment tests to confirm the specific patterns of parent-child synchrony in different brain areas. The results showed that, in free-play (right MFG and bilateral SFG), positive (left TPJ and bilateral SFGdor), and negative (bilateral SFGmed, right ANG, and left MFG) topic discussions, the mother-child pairs showed different patterns of INS. These specific INS patterns were significantly lower in the ODD group compared to the control group and were negatively associated with ODD symptoms in children. Network analyses showed that these INS patterns were connected to different nodes in the ODD symptom network. Our findings suggest that ODD mother-child dyads exhibit lower neural synchrony across a wide range of parent-child interactions. Neural synchrony in the context of interpersonal interactions provides new insights into understanding the neural mechanisms of ODD and can be used as an indicator of neural and socio-environmental factors in the network of psychological disorder symptoms.
母婴之间的人际神经同步性（INS）会对二元伙伴之间联合行为中脑信号的时间相似性做出反应，被认为是适应性社会互动纽带形成的重要神经指标。亲子互动对儿童对立违抗障碍（ODD）的发展和维持尤为重要，但其潜在的神经认知机制尚不清楚。因此，在本研究中，我们使用同步功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）测量了母婴互动中的INS，并探讨了其与儿童ODD症状的关联。招募了72对母婴参与研究，其中包括35名患有ODD的儿童和37名健康儿童作为对照。每对母婴在完成自由玩耍以及积极和消极话题讨论任务时，测量其额叶、顶叶和颞叶区域的神经活动。我们使用锁相值来计算同步强度，然后使用K均值算法和基于k空间的对齐测试来确认不同脑区中亲子同步的具体模式。结果表明，在自由玩耍（右侧额中回和双侧额上回）、积极（左侧颞顶联合区和双侧背侧额上回）和消极（双侧内侧额上回、右侧角回和左侧额中回）话题讨论中，母婴对表现出不同的INS模式。与对照组相比，ODD组的这些特定INS模式显著更低，且与儿童的ODD症状呈负相关。网络分析表明，这些INS模式与ODD症状网络中的不同节点相连。我们的研究结果表明，患有ODD的母婴二元组在广泛的亲子互动中表现出较低的神经同步性。人际互动背景下的神经同步性为理解ODD的神经机制提供了新的见解，并可作为心理障碍症状网络中神经和社会环境因素的指标。
