The brains of babies mimic the emotional conditions of their caregivers
The right hemisphere of the caregivers brain, the side where our unconscious emotions reside (the left hemisphere generally remains emotionally neutral), programs the infantās right hemisphere. In the early months, the most important communications between the caregiver and the infant are unconscious ones. Babies and children are more reliant on the right hemisphere than the left. Incapable of deciphering the meaning of words, the infant receives messages that are purely emotional. They are conveyed by the caregivers gaze, their tone of voice and their body language, all of which reflect their unconscious internal emotional environment.
The electrical activity of the infantās brain is exquisitely sensitive to that of the nurturing adult. A study at the University of Washington in Seattle compared the brain-wave patterns of two groups of six-month-old infants: one group whose mothers were suffering postpartum depression and one group whose mothers were in normal good spirits. EEGs showed consistent, marked differences between the two groups: the babies of the depressed mothers had EEG patterns characteristic of depression even during interactions with their mothers that were meant to elicit a joyful response. Significantly, these effects were noted only in the frontal lobes.
The brain selects for the brain circuits that are most utilized throughout development. How does this pertain to brain development? Repeatedly firing neuron patterns become wired into the brain and will form part of a personās habitual responses to the world. In the words of the great Canadian neuroscientist Donald Hebb, ācells that fire together, wire together.ā The infants of stressed or depressed parents are likely to encode negative emotional patterns in their brains. The long-term effect of parental mood on the biology of the childās brain is illustrated by several studies showing that concentrations of cortisol are elevated in the children of clinically depressed mothers. At age three, the highest cortisol levels were found in those children whose mothers had been depressed during the childās first year of life, rather than later
Thus we see that the brain is āexperience-dependent.ā Good experiences lead to healthy brain development, while the absence of good experiences or the presence of bad ones distorts development in essential brain structures. An abnormal or impoverished rearing environment can decrease a thousand fold the number of synapses per axon, retard growth and eliminate billions if not trillions of synapses per brain, and result in the preservation of abnormal interconnections which are normally discarded over the course of development
References
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Mate, Gabor. (2010). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts Close Encounters with Addiction Chapter 17. Their Brains Never Had a Chance (p. 237). Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
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Mate, Gabor. (1999). Scattered Minds Chapter 9 Attunement and Attachment (Epub p. 88). London, UK: Random House.
Metadata
Type:š“ Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Developmental Neurology Status:āļø