The Suggested Effect on the Brain as Material Organism by
the Spiritual Relationship of Mother to Child
A RELATIVELY new field, called interpersonal neurobiology, draws
its vigor from one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is
constantly rewiring itself based on daily life. In the end, what we pay the
most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours
of your life literally transforms you.
All relationships change the brain — but most important are the
intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that
shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.
Every great love affair begins with a scream. At birth, the
brain starts blazing new neural pathways based on its odyssey in an alien
world. An infant is steeped in bright, buzzing, bristling sensations, raw
emotions and the curious feelings they unleash, weird objects, a flux of faces,
shadowy images and dreams — but most of all a powerfully magnetic primary
caregiver whose wizardry astounds.
Brain scans show synchrony between the brains of mother and
child; but what they can’t show is the internal bond that belongs to neither
alone, a fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn’t matter whose
body is whose. Wordlessly, relying on the heart’s semaphores, the mother says
all an infant needs to hear, communicating through eyes, face and voice. Thanks
to advances in neuroimaging, we now have evidence that a baby’s first
attachments imprint its brain. The patterns of a lifetime’s behaviors,
thoughts, self-regard and choice of sweethearts all begin in this crucible.
We used to think this was the end of the story: first heredity,
then the brain’s engraving mental maps in childhood, after which you’re pretty
much stuck with the final blueprint.
But as a wealth of imaging studies highlight, the neural alchemy
continues throughout life as we mature and forge friendships, dabble in
affairs, succumb to romantic love, choose a soul mate. The body remembers how
that oneness with Mother felt, and longs for its adult equivalent….
The
New York Times
March
24, 2012, 4:28 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment