Introduction
Developmental disabilities, ADHD
Developmental disabilities in children and parenting difficulties are strongly related (Woodman et al., Parent training (PT) is a psychosocial, support intervention that promotes a nurturing environment for childcare (parental understanding and response), which is widely known for its effectiveness (Daley et al., A previous neuroimaging study reported that tasks that measure social skills and abilities, such as mind-reading tasks (“Reading the Mind in the Eyes test [RMET] (Baron-Cohen et al., Herein, we focused on the effects of PT on parenting stress and parenting practices in mothers of children with ADHD, at a neurological level. We hypothesized that PT would improve qualitative stress and unsound parenting practice indexes, as determined using parenting stress and discipline questionnaires. Moreover, we hypothesized that functional changes in maternal brain could be revealed by blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI during the RMET. We expected that mothers enrolled in PT may respond more efficiently to others’ emotional status, and that this might be related to activity changes in brain regions involved in judging other’s affective states. Understanding the effects of PT at a functional neural level could potentially aid the development of more precise treatment strategies and biomarkers for evaluating treatment effects.