20 Chapter 1 Figure 1.3 Schematic overview of the RE-PAIR study and specific tasks that have been used to answer the research questions in the present thesis. EMA = Ecological momentary assessment, fMRI = Functional magnetic resonance imaging. OUTLINE OF THIS THESIS The research described in this thesis investigated the neural and affective signatures of connectedness between parents and adolescents, which was operationalized by the assessment of parents’ and adolescents’ responses to making eye contact with each other and parental empathy. To assess this, we developed two novel fMRI paradigms to study the neural correlates of these processes in the brains of parents and adolescents. In addition, we examined the uniqueness of these responses to the parent-child bond by comparing these responses to how parents and adolescents respond to unknown others in similar situations. We examined these processes first in parent-adolescent dyads in well-functioning families in order to gain more insight in these processes under ‘normal’ conditions. In addition, we studied the impact of a history of childhood emotional maltreatment in parents and adolescent depression on parents’ and adolescents’ neural and affective responses to their mutual connectedness. Chapter 2 examined parents’ neural and affective responses to prolonged eye contact with one’s own child versus unfamiliar others. Chapter 3 examined the impact of a history of childhood emotional maltreatment in parents on their neural and affective responses to gazing into their own and others’ eyes. Chapter 4 investigated adolescents’ neural and affective responses
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw