MEG used to study task-free face-to-face spontaneous interactions between mother, child with autism

With specially constructed equipment based on the magnetoencephalography (MEG) for a child, researchers made crucial discoveries that will help in advancing understanding of the development of social minds.

“The social interaction between a mother and her child has a crucial role in childhood development and is critical in the development of social minds,” wrote Chiaki Hasegawa et al. “The cognitive and emotional interactions between a mother and her child are induced by their behaviors, and such brain-to-brain interactions must play a crucial role in forming social minds.”

The functional neuroimaging technique found that the brain activities of the child with serious autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and of the mother’s brain were low when they gazed at one another. However, when the mother made a movement, such as nodding in response to her child, the mother’s brain activities were high. A large amount of social information, in an unconscious manner, was found as the two gazed at each other. Data suggests that bidirectional interaction largely affects a child’s social development.

The research team from Kanazawa University and Osaka University published its findings in Scientific Reports. This was a pilot study to simultaneously examine both mothers and their children with ASD's neuromagnetic activities during task-free face-to-face spontaneous interactions.

“Our results from pilot study demonstrated that the mu suppression level of ASD children and their mothers reflects their social ability or autistic traits and demonstrated a correlation between the mu suppression in the mothers and their children.