Relations between family cohesion and adolescent-parent’s neural synchrony in response to emotional stimulations

Behavioral and Brain Functions (2022) 18:11 Deng et al. Behavioral and Brain Functions https://doi.org/10.1186/s12993-022-00197-1 Open Access RESEARCH Relations between family cohesion and adolescent‑parent’s neural synchrony in response to emotional stimulations Xinmei Deng1*, Mingping Lin1, Lin Zhang1, Xiaoqing Li1 and Qiufeng Gao2 Abstract Background: The interaction between parent and adolescent is more challenging than in other age periods. Family cohesion seriously impacts parent-adolescent emotional interactions. However, the underlying neural mechanism has not been fully examined. This study examined the differences in the neural synchrony in response to emotional film clips between high and low family cohesion adolescent-parent dyads by using the electroencephalograph (EEG) hyperscanning. Results: Simultaneously electroencephalograph (EEG) was recorded while 15 low family cohesion parent-adolescent dyads (LFCs)and 14 high family cohesion parent-adolescent dyads (HFCs)received different emotional induction when viewing film clips. Interbrain phase-locking-value (PLV) in gamma band was used to calculate parent-adolescent dyads’ interbrain synchrony. Results showed that higher gamma interbrain synchrony was observed in the HFCs than the LFCs in the positive conditions. However, there was no significant difference between the HFCs and LFCs in other conditions. Also, the HFCs had significantly higher gamma interbrain synchrony in the positive conditions than in the negative conditions. Conclusion: Interbrain synchrony may represent an underlying neural mechanism of the parent-adolescent emotional bonding, which is the core of family cohesion. Keywords: EEG hyperscanning, Family cohesion, Adolescents, Interbrain synchrony, Emotional processing Introduction Family cohesion refers to the emotion, support, helpfulness and caring among family members [41]. Adolescence can be considered a sensitive period for social development, with psychological and social cognitive changes [6]. During adolescence, the social world and interpersonal interactions become increasingly important. Previous research indicated that family cohesion may help adolescents to overcome the challenges of social interactions by receiving social and emotional *Correspondence: 1 School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article support from family members [24]. However, the underlying neural mechanism for the impacts of family cohesion on adolescent-parent emotional interactions has not been fully examined. As a biomarker of social and emotional interaction, the electroencephalogram (EEG) interbrain synchrony may represent the behavioral and emotional synchrony, which reflects the emotional bond within adolescent-parent dyads [28]. Making further exploration of the impacts of family cohesion on the neural synchrony within adolescent-parent dyads during an emotional related task may shed light on the understanding of the biological base of social interaction. Therefore, this study examined the differences in the neural synchrony in response to different emotional stimuli © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Deng et al. Behavioral and Brain Functions (2022) 18:11 simultaneously between the adolescent-parent dyads who had different level of family cohesion. Family cohesion is defined as the emotional bonding that family members have toward each other [42]. It is the core component of family functioning. Previous studies indicated that balanced level of family cohesion (e.g., from moderately low to moderately high level) is beneficial and viable for healthy family functioning [41]. In a functional and cohesive family, family members can be emotionally connected to, provide support and care for their families [49]. Family cohesion has significant impacts on adolescents’ behavior, socio-emotional development, well-being in their later life, and caregivers’ parenting behaviors [5, 43]. It is highly related to individuals’ positive well-being. For example, adolescents in families with a high level of family cohesion would report more positive emotional experiences, more life satisfaction, and more meaning and purpose in life [17]. Adverse family processes may operate to increase adolescents’ vulnerability to depression [48]. Previous research also indicated that family cohesion is associated with a lower level of negative behavioral outcomes during development (e.g., externalizing behaviors) [20]. The influence of family cohesion on children and adolescents’ behavioral problems may be moderated by the caregivers’ health conditions and parenting behaviors. Family cohesion can provide important emotional support and boding to reduce the negative impacts of maladaptive parenting behavior on children’s behavioral problems [31]. It is considered to be an important protective buffer as it meets the individual’s psychological need for affiliation, security and emotional connection with others [46]. Not only the positive impacts on adolescents’ behavior and mental health, family cohesion also has protective impacts on social and emotional interaction for adolescents. Family cohesion is positively correlated with close emotional bonding and depend attachments. A cohesive family reflects a symbiotic and interdependent relationship between family members [1]. For example, a child’s mental and emotional status would depend on and be impacted by the other members. Family cohesion is also related to the family member’s feelings (i.e., loneliness), which reflect their family environment and the quality of the interactions with other family members [24]. Previous research indicated that family cohesion is negatively correlated with the parent-adolescent conflict [52]. Higher family cohesion which is characterized as a higher family engagement is negatively correlated with the adolescents’ depressive symptom (...truncated)