Abstract
Caregiving plays a critical role in children's cognitive, emotional, and psychological well-being. In the current longitudinal study, we investigated the enduring effects of early maternal behavior on processes of interbrain synchrony in adolescence. Mother-infant naturalistic interactions were filmed when infants were 3 months old and interactions were coded for maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness using the Coding Interactive Behavior. In early adolescence (Mean = 12.30, SD = 1.25), mother-adolescent interbrain synchrony was measured using hyperscanning EEG during a naturalistic interaction of positive valance. Consistent with prior hyperscanning research, we focused on interbrain connections within the right frontotemporal network. Results indicate that maternal sensitivity in early infancy was longitudinally associated with interbrain synchrony in the right frontotemporal network. Post-hoc comparisons highlighted enhancement of mother-adolescent frontal-frontal connectivity, a connection implicated in parent-child social communication. In contrast, maternal intrusiveness in infancy linked with attenuation of interbrain synchrony in the right frontotemporal network. Sensitivity and intrusiveness are key maternal social orientations that are individually stable in the mother-child relationship from infancy to adulthood and foreshadow children's positive and negative social-emotional outcomes, respectively. Our findings are the first to demonstrate that these two maternal orientations play a role in enhancing or attenuating the child's frontotemporal interbrain network that sustains social communication and affiliation. Results suggest that the long-term impact of the mother's sensitive and intrusive style may relate, in part, to its effects on tuning the child's interbrain network to sociality.