Li Jiarui, Matsunaga Michiko, Myowa Masako, Nagai Yukie
International Research Center for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN), The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 12;20(9):e0320175. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320175. eCollection 2025.
Mothers and children interact through behaviors and mutual physiological signals. Recent research has suggested that physiological interactions are sensitive biomarkers for parenting challenges such as childcare stress. Most studies have focused on short-term, activity-based interactions. However, few studies have examined longer timescale data, such as interactions containing circadian rhythms, which are closely associated with stress. This study aimed to explore the link between childcare stress and mother-child autonomic nervous system activities in daily interactions using 24-hour at-home data. Cross-recurrence plots were used to quantify interactive patterns to reflect the rich nonlinear dynamics of autonomic nervous system signals and the complex interplay between mothers and children. The relationships between quantified low-dimensional cross-recurrence plot representations and parenting stress were evaluated through multiple regression analysis. The cross-recurrence plots effectively quantified complex, nonlinear, day-to-night interactions of mother-child autonomous nervous system activities and significantly predicted maternal parenting stress, offering novel insights into daily parental stress dynamics beyond recurrence plots that merely quantify the activities from individual systems.
母亲和孩子通过行为以及相互的生理信号进行互动。最近的研究表明，生理互动是育儿挑战（如育儿压力）的敏感生物标志物。大多数研究都集中在基于活动的短期互动上。然而，很少有研究考察更长时间尺度的数据，比如包含昼夜节律的互动，而昼夜节律与压力密切相关。本研究旨在利用24小时的居家数据，探索日常互动中育儿压力与母婴自主神经系统活动之间的联系。交叉重现图被用来量化互动模式，以反映自主神经系统信号丰富的非线性动态以及母婴之间复杂的相互作用。通过多元回归分析评估量化的低维交叉重现图表示与育儿压力之间的关系。交叉重现图有效地量化了母婴自主神经系统活动复杂的、非线性的昼夜互动，并显著预测了母亲的育儿压力，为日常育儿压力动态提供了新的见解，超越了仅仅量化单个系统活动的重现图。
