“Sharenting” is an internet trend in which parents report detailed information or repeatedly post pictures, videos, and other content about their children on social media. Due to the duality of sharenting, which takes place online but has offline consequences, it is essential to understand the implications of sharenting for real-world parenting and child development. The present work analyzes references in the existing literature and links among published articles to better understand sharenting, evidence for it, and major topics associated with it and to uncover the gaps in the literature. Citation analysis of the current literature mainly focuses on risks and benefits related to sharenting practices, especially for the children, and on ethical and privacy concerns. Future studies should investigate the psychological mechanisms that drive sharenting-related behaviors in parents and multidisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon. With a broader perspective on these issues, practitioners and professionals in family studies will be able to delineate guidelines for informative interventions to increase awarenes about the causes and consequences of publicly sharing child content.

Research investigating the neural substrates underpinning parental behaviour has recently gained momentum. Particularly, the hypothalamic medial preoptic area (MPOA) has been identified as a crucial region for parenting. The current study conducted a scientometric analysis of publications from 1 January 1972 to 19 January 2021 using CiteSpace software to determine trends in the scientific literature exploring the relationship between MPOA and parental behaviour. In total, 677 scientific papers were analysed, producing a network of 1509 nodes and 5498 links. Four major clusters were identified: “C-Fos Expression”, “Lactating Rat”, “Medial Preoptic Area Interaction” and “Parental Behavior”. Their content suggests an initial trend in which the properties of the MPOA in response to parental behavior were studied, followed by a growing attention towards the presence of a brain network, including the reward circuits, regulating such behavior. Furthermore, while attention was initially directed uniquely to maternal behavior, it has recently been extended to the understanding of paternal behaviors as well. Finally, although the majority of the studies were conducted on rodents, recent publications broaden the implications of previous documents to human parental behavior, giving insight into the mechanisms underlying postpartum depression. Potential directions in future works were also discussed.

Hyperscanning, a neuroimaging approach introduced in 2002 for simultaneously recording the brain activity of multiple participants, has significantly contributed to our understanding of social interactions. Nevertheless, the existing literature requires systematic organization to advance our knowledge. This study, after two decades of hyperscanning research, aims to identify the primary thematic domains and the most influential documents in the field. We conducted a scientometric analysis to examine co-citation patterns quantitatively, using a sample of 548 documents retrieved from Scopus and their 32,022 cited references. Our analysis revealed ten major thematic domains in hyperscanning research, with the most impactful document authored by Czeszumski and colleagues in 2020. Notably, while hyperscanning was initially developed for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), our findings indicate a substantial influence of research conducted using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The introduction of fNIRS and advancements in EEG methods have enabled the implementation of more ecologically valid experiments for investigating social interactions. The study also highlights the need for more research that combines multi-brain neural stimulation with neuroimaging techniques to understand the causal role played by interpersonal neural synchrony in social interactions.

The Japanese term hikikomori was first used to describe prolonged social withdrawal in the 1990s. Since then, research across the world have reported similar prolonged social withdrawal in many countries outside Japan. This study systematically analyses the evolution of literature on hikikomori in the past 20 years to gain a better understanding of the development of the knowledge base on hikikomori since it garnered attention in Japan. Findings from the scientometric review indicate many perspectives on the etiology of hikikomori including cultural, attachment, family systems and sociological approaches. However, similarities with modern type depression, a novel psychiatric syndrome, have been proposed and there are signs of a recent paradigm shift of hikikomori as a society-bound syndrome rather than a cultural-bound syndrome unique to Japan. As research into hikikomori continues to grow, results from the review also highlight the need for a more universally shared definition of hikikomori in order to better consolidate cross-cultural research for meaningful and valid cross-cultural comparisons which can help to promote evidence-based therapeutic interventions for hikikomori.