Abstract
Although there are millions of left-behind children in China, the researches on brain structure and functions in left-behind children are not sufficient at the brain imaging level. This study aimed to explore whether there is decreased prefrontal synchronization during joint attention in left-behind children. Sixty children (65.12 ± 6.54 months, 29 males) with 34 left-behind children were recruited. The functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging data from the prefrontal cortex during joint attention, as well as behavioral measures (associated with family income, intelligence, language, and social-emotional abilities), were collected. Results verified that brain imaging data and behavioral measures are correlative and support that left-behind children have deficits in social-emotional abilities. More importantly, left-behind children showed decreased synchronization strength and asymmetry in the right middle frontal gyrus during joint attention. The findings suggest that decreased right prefrontal synchronization strength and asymmetry during joint attention might be vulnerability factors in the development of left-behind children.
Highlights
The rapid urbanization has caused the emergence of a special group of left-behind children with deprivation of parental care [being considered as an early-life stress (Mueller et al, 2010)] in China
A three-factor MANOVA was conducted on synchronization strength and asymmetry results, where three factors included task-types (IJA and Responding to Joint Attention (RJA) tasks), partner-types, and separation-types
The statistical results (Figures 3, 4) showed that: (i) Non-left-behind children had significantly higher synchronization strength of Region F than left-behind children (F = 5.051, p = 0.028); (ii) Non-left-behind children had significantly higher synchronization asymmetry in region-pair F-C than left-behind children (F = 5.96, p = 0.018); (iii) The synchronization asymmetry between left and right hemispheres in left-behind and non-left-behind children was influenced by the partner-types and task-types (RJA and Initiating Joint Attention (IJA)) (F = 4.166, p = 0.046); and (iv) For synchronization strength in Region E, there was a significant interaction effect among the three factors (F = 6.185, p = 0.016)
Summary
The rapid urbanization has caused the emergence of a special group of left-behind children with deprivation of parental care [being considered as an early-life stress (Mueller et al, 2010)] in China. Deprivation of parental care may usually lead to physical or/and emotional neglect in left-behind children (Mueller et al, 2010; Teicher et al, 2016; McLaughlin et al, 2017), and thereby be considered as a kind of adverse childhood experiences (McLaughlin et al, 2014, 2017; Teicher et al, 2016) It has been hypothesized and widely accepted (Teicher et al, 2016; McLaughlin et al, 2017) that early experiences are crucial in shaping individuals’ brain structure and functions. Both animal experiments and longitudinal studies of orphans have verified that early caregiver deprivation may initiate deterioration of emotional and cognitive processes in adulthood (Chugani et al, 2001; Mueller et al, 2010; Marco et al, 2015)
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