Increased resting-state activity in the cerebellum with mothers having less adaptive sensory processing and trait anxiety.

Child-rearing mothers with high levels of trait anxiety have a tendency for less adaptive sensory processing, which causes parenting stress. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this sensory processing and trait anxiety remain unclear. We aimed to determine the whole-brain spontaneous neural activity and sensory processing characteristics in mothers with varying parenting stress levels.

Intrinsic brain activity associated with eye gaze during mother-child interaction.

Mother-child interactions impact child social development and psychological health. This study focused on eye-gaze interactions, especially eye contact as synchronized gaze, which is an important non-verbal communication tool in human interactions. We performed brain-image analysis of mothers and children using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and quantitatively evaluated the quality of mother-child interactions using the Interaction Rating Scale to investigate how it is related to the frequency of mother-child eye contact.