In sync with your child: The potential of parent–child electroencephalography in developmental research

Abstract

Healthy interaction between parent and child is foundational for the child's socioemotional development. Recently, an innovative paradigm shift in electroencephalography (EEG) research has enabled the simultaneous measurement of neural activity in caregiver and child. This dual-EEG or hyperscanning approach, termed parent-child dual-EEG, combines the strength of both behavioral observations and EEG methods.In this review, we aim to inform on the potential of dual-EEG in parents and children (0-6 years) for developmental researchers. We first provide a general overview of the dual-EEG technique and continue by reviewing the first empirical work on the emerging field of parent-child dual-EEG, discussing the limited but fascinating findings on parent-child brain-to-behavior and brain-to-brain synchrony. We then continue by providing an overview of dual-EEG analysis techniques, including the technical challenges and solutions one may encounter. We finish by discussing the potential of parent-child dual-EEG for the future of developmental research. The analysis of multiple EEG data is technical and challenging, but when performed well, parent-child EEG may transform the way we understand how caregiver and child connect on a neurobiological level. Importantly, studying objective physiological measures of parent-child interactions could lead to the identification of novel brain-to-brain synchrony markers of interaction quality.

Brains in Sync: Practical Guideline for Parent–Infant EEG During Natural Interaction

“…Moreover, enhanced phase-locked brain-to-brain synchrony predicts higher infant social learning likelihood (preprint, Leong et al, 2019 ). A review of existing parent–infant EEG studies so far is beyond the scope of this guideline paper, please see the reviews of parent-child EEG for an extensive overview of the conditions, findings and possibilities of parent–infant EEG for developmental research ( Markova et al, 2019 ; Wass et al, 2020 ; Turk et al, 2022 ).…”

“…The next step of the analysis is to decide which connectivity or coupling method is the best for your data ( Figure 3 ). There are many methods to compute brain-to-brain and interpersonal brain-to-behavior coupling and there is no golden standard yet ( Turk et al, 2022 ). Common analysis techniques in the dual-EEG field to compute concurrent (non-directed) brain-to-brain or brain-to-behavior coupling are: correlations (Corr) of power/amplitude and coherence-based (Coh) measures of power/amplitude in a specific frequency range ( Atzaba-Poria et al, 2017 ; Zamm et al, 2018 ; Krzeczkowski et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Parent–infant EEG studies provided accumulating evidence for the coupling of neural activity and attunement of fast-changing social signals such as attention ( Wass et al, 2018 ), mutual gaze ( Leong et al, 2017 ; Endevelt-Shapira et al, 2021 ), negative behavior ( Atzaba-Poria et al, 2017 ), and emotions ( Krzeczkowski et al, 2020 ; Perone et al, 2020 ; Santamaria et al, 2020 ) between parent and infant. These fascinating initial findings underscore the multitude of possibilities to investigate parent–infant synchrony on a whole new multimodal and interpersonal level (for review see, Markova et al, 2019 ; Wass et al, 2020 ; Turk et al, 2022 ), making it possible to explore new neurobiological aspects of natural interaction and to examine differences in clinical cohorts ( Leong and Schilbach, 2019 ).…”

“…More recent studies have shown that synchrony between parent and infant can be observed across neurobiological systems, including parent–infant synchrony of heart rhythms ( Feldman et al, 2011 ) or oxytocin response ( Feldman et al, 2010a ), which are accompanied by behavioral synchrony (for review see, Feldman, 2020 ). Only recently, empirical studies using a parent–infant hyperscanning paradigm began to show that adult’s and infant’s neural activity is also synchronized during social interaction (see for review: Markova et al, 2019 ; Wass et al, 2020 ; Turk et al, 2022 ).…”

“…The number of studies that simultaneously measure EEG-based brain activity during parent–infant interaction are rapidly growing. However, common grounds on how to acquire the data and estimate brain-to-brain synchrony as well as the validity of the method are still largely lacking ( Burgess, 2013 ; Turk et al, 2022 ). Consequently, instead of getting new insights in underlying interpersonal neural interactions, this variety may make it hard to compare studies and may lead to problems of reliability and validation of synchronization ( Burgess, 2013 ; Hamilton, 2021 ).…”