The role of dyadic communication in social cognitive development

Schizophrenia and the bodily self

Despite the historically consolidated psychopathological perspective, on the one hand, contemporary organicistic psychiatry often highlights abnormalities in neurotransmitter systems like dysregulation of dopamine transmission, neural circuitry, and genetic factors as key contributors to schizophrenia. Neuroscience, on the other, has so far almost entirely neglected the first-person experiential dimension of this syndrome, mainly focusing on high-order cognitive functions, such as executive function, working memory, theory of mind, and the like. An alternative view posits that schizophrenia is a self-disorder characterized by anomalous self-experience and awareness. This view may not only shed new light on the psychopathological features of psychosis but also inspire empirical research targeting the bodily and neurobiological changes underpinning this disorder. Cognitive neuroscience can today address classic topics of phenomenological psychopathology by adding a new level of description, finally enabling the correlation between the first-person experiential aspects of psychiatric diseases and their neurobiological roots. Recent empirical evidence on the neurobiological basis of a minimal notion of the self, the bodily self, is presented. The relationship between the body, its motor potentialities and the notion of minimal self is illustrated. Evidence on the neural mechanisms underpinning the bodily self, its plasticity, and the blurring of self-other distinction in schizophrenic patients is introduced and discussed. It is concluded that brain-body function anomalies of multisensory integration, differential processing of self- and other-related bodily information mediating self-experience, might be at the basis of the disruption of the self disorders characterizing schizophrenia.

Responsiveness in mother-infant social interactions among immigrant and nonmigrant families: Japanese, South Korean, South American, and European American

A culture learning perspective motivated the present study of the acculturation of responsiveness in mother-infant interactions. Several conceptual and analytic features of responsiveness in mother-infant social interactions were examined: Temporal contingency, mean differences in responsiveness among and within dyads, attunement of mother and infant responsiveness withing dyads, and the influence of acculturation on individual responsiveness. Methodologically, acculturation was assessed at group and individual levels in immigrant Japanese, South Korean, and South American dyads in comparison with nonmigrant dyads in their respective cultures of origin (Japan, South Korea, and South America) and their single common culture of destination (United States). In total, 408 mothers and their 5½-month-old infants were observed in the naturalistic setting of the home, and observations were coded for mothers' speech to infant, social play, and encouraging her infant to look at her, and infants' looking at mother and nondistress vocalizations. Odds ratios were then generated for mother and infant responsiveness in four types of social interactions: Mother speaks to infant and infant looks at mother (Mother Speak/Infant Attend), mother plays with infant and infant looks at mother (Mother Play/Infant Attend), mother plays with infant and infant vocalizes (Mother Play/Infant Vocalize), and mother encourages infant to look at her and infant vocalizes (Mother Encourage/Infant Vocalize). Five key findings emerged. Specifically, mother and infant responsiveness in Mother Speak/Infant Attend interactions were temporally contingent in all cultures. Mean differences in responsiveness among cultures emerged, and within dyads infants were more responsive than their mothers in Mother Speak/Infant Attend interactions. Mother and infant responsiveness in Mother Speak/Infant Attend interactions were attuned in all cultures. Responsiveness in Mother Play/Infant Vocalize interactions showed acculturation effects at the individual level. Implications of these findings for understanding the development of responsiveness in social interactions and acculturation in immigrant families are discussed.

Infant social interactions and brain development: A systematic review

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Associations between caregiver-infant behaviours during social interactions and brain development outcomes were investigated.

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Caregivers' and infants' behaviours in interactions related to children’s structural, functional and connectivity measures.

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Concurrent associations between behavioural and brain measures were apparent as early as three months postnatally.

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Long-term associations between behaviours in early interactions and brain development outcomes were observed decades later.

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Individual differences in early interactions and associated brain development is an important avenue for further research.

From birth, interactions with others are an integral part of a person’s daily life. In infancy, social exchanges are thought to be critical for optimal brain development. This systematic review explores this association by drawing together infant studies that relate adult-infant behaviours – coded from their social interactions - to children’s brain measures collected during a neuroimaging session in infancy, childhood, adolescence or adulthood. In total, we identified 55 studies that explored associations between infants’ social interactions and neural measures. These studies show that several aspects of caregiver-infant behaviours are associated with, or predict, a variety of neural responses in infants, children and adolescents. The presence of both concurrent and long-term associations - some of which are first observed just a few months postnatally and extend into adulthood - open an important research avenue and motivate further longitudinal studies.

Dynamic Advances in Emotion Processing: Differential Attention towards the Critical Features of Dynamic Emotional Expressions in 7-Month-Old Infants

Infants' visual processing of emotion undergoes significant development across the first year of life, yet our knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying these advances is limited. Additionally, infant emotion processing is commonly examined using static faces, which do not accurately depict real-world emotional displays. The goal of this study was to characterize 7-month-olds' visual scanning strategies when passively viewing dynamic emotional expressions to examine whether infants modify their scanning patterns depending on the emotion. Eye-tracking measures revealed differential attention towards the critical features (eyes, mouth) of expressions. The eyes captured the greatest attention for angry and neutral faces, and the mouth captured the greatest attention for happy faces. A time-course analysis further elucidated at what point during the trial differential scanning patterns emerged. The current results suggest that 7-month-olds are sensitive to the critical features of emotional expressions and scan them differently depending on the emotion. The scanning patterns presented in this study may serve as a link to understanding how infants begin to differentiate between expressions in the context of emotion recognition.

Differences in social interaction- vs. cocaine reward in mouse vs. rat

We previously developed rat experimental models based on the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm in which only four 15-min episodes of dyadic social interaction with a sex- and weight-matched male Sprague Dawley (SD) rat (1) reversed CPP from cocaine to social interaction despite continuing cocaine training, and (2) prevented the reacquisition/re-expression of cocaine CPP. In a concurrent conditioning schedule, pairing one compartment with social interaction and the other compartment with 15 mg/kg cocaine injections, rats spent the same amount of time in both compartments and the most rewarding sensory component of the composite stimulus social interaction was touch (taction). In the present study, we validated our experimental paradigm in C57BL/6 mice to investigate if our experimental paradigm may be useful for the considerable number of genetically modified mouse models. Only 71% of the tested mice developed place preference for social interaction, whereas 85% of the rats did. Accordingly, 29% of the mice developed conditioned place aversion (CPA) to social interaction, whereas this was true for only 15% of the rats. In support of the lesser likelihood of mice to develop a preference for social interaction, the average amount of time spent in direct contact was 17% for mice vs. 79% for rats. In animals that were concurrently conditioned for social interaction vs. cocaine, the relative reward strength for cocaine was 300-fold higher in mice than in rats. Considering that human addicts regularly prefer drugs of abuse to drug-free social interaction, the present findings suggest that our experimental paradigm of concurrent CPP for cocaine vs. social interaction is of even greater translational power if performed in C57BL/6 mice, the genetic background for most transgenic rodent models, than in rats.

Infant communication and subsequent language development in children from low-income families: the role of early cognitive stimulation

OBJECTIVES

To explore the relationship between early cognitive stimulation in the home, 6-month infant communication, and 24-month toddler language in a low-socioeconomic status sample.

METHODS

Longitudinal analyses of mother-child dyads participating in larger study of early child development were performed. Dyads enrolled postpartum in an urban public hospital. Cognitive stimulation in the home at 6 months was assessed using StimQ-lnfant, including provision of toys, shared reading, teaching, and verbal responsivity. Early infant communication was assessed at 6 months including the following: (1) Emotion and eye gaze (Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scale DP-CSBS DP), (2) Communicative bids (CSBS DP), and (3) Expression of emotion (Short Temperament Scale for Infants). Toddler language was assessed at 24 months using the Preschool Language Scale-4, including the following: (1) expressive language and (2) auditory comprehension.

RESULTS

Three hundred twenty families were assessed. In structural equation models, cognitive stimulation in the home was strongly associated with early infant communication (β = 0.63, p <.0001) and was predictive of 24-month language (β = 0.20, p <.05). The effect of early cognitive stimulation on 24-month language was mediated through early impacts on infant communication (Indirect β = 0.28, p =.001). Reading, teaching, availability of learning materials, and other reciprocal verbal interactions were all related directly to infant communication and indirectly to language outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

The impact of early cognitive stimulation on toddler language is manifested through early associations with infant communication. Pediatric primary care providers should promote cognitive stimulation beginning in early infancy and support the expansion and dissemination of intervention programs such as Reach Out and Read and the Video Interaction Project.