title: Hyperscanning MEG for understanding mother-child cerebral interactions.
abstract: Child development is seriously affected by social interactions with caregivers, which may lead to forming social minds in our daily life afterward. However, the underlying neural mechanism for such interactions has not yet been revealed. This article introduces a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) hyperscanning system to examine brain-to-brain interactions between a mother and her child. We used two whole-head MEG systems placed in the same magnetically-shielded room. One is a 160-channel gradiometer system for an adult and the other is a 151-channel gradiometer system for a child. We developed an audio-visual presentation system, which enabled a mother and her child to look at each other in real time. In each MEG system, a video camera was placed behind a half-mirror screen for visual presentation to obtain the subjects' facial expressions. The visual presentation system is capable of displaying not only real-time facial expression but also processed facial expression such as a still face or delayed facial expressions. A projector system displays the side-by-side face images of the mother and child, and the images are divided into each face using splitting mirrors and each face is displayed on the half-mirror screen in front of the other subject. To the best of our knowledge, our system is the first MEG hyperscanning system in a single shielded room, and may contribute to elucidating brain-to-brain interactions not only between a mother and her child but also in general inter-individual, brain-to-brain interactions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Osaka University Medical School Suita, Japan.
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hirata
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Osaka University Medical School Suita, Japan ; Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University Suita, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.affiliation: Yokogawa Electric Corporation Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Hirotoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hiraishi
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.affiliation: Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University Suita, Japan.
authors.forename: Minoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asada
keywords: MEG; hyperscanning; mother–child interaction; social interaction