Click the picture of a human brain
for an enlarged view with readable labels. Close your hands into
fists, and put your hands together, knuckles touching. That gives
you a good idea how large your brain is.
The prefrontal cortex, in the front
of the brain, appears here as the dark area.
This tiger cub is in almost
constant contact with his mom and his littermates. Whether he's
playing or cuddling, he enjoys closeness and it prepares him for a
healthy adulthood.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS:
Cerebellum
- Part of the brain responsible for coordination, making other parts work
together for good physical and emotional control.
Limbic System
- The center of emotion. When directly stimulated with low electric
current, it causes unexplained outbursts of rage, joy, laughter, or sadness,
depending on where it is touched.
Prefrontal Cortex (or Frontal Lobes)
- The brain's working memory. The center of concentration, problem
solving, critical thinking and thinking ahead.
Schizophrenia - A mental
illness resulting in disorganized
thinking, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations. People with
schizophrenia often suffer terrifying symptoms such as hearing internal voices
not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds,
controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them.
Serotonin - A brain chemical
responsible for a feeling of well-being, needed in order to properly experience
pleasure.
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TOUCH AND THE BRAIN:
Dr. Prescott
needed to find out why movement and touch were so important to
infant development, so he
looked at the three areas of the brain that were affected the most by touch and
movement. The Cerebellum, Limbic System, and Prefrontal Cortex all show
clear signs of abnormality in S-SAD victims.
THE CEREBELLUM:
The cerebellum (ser-uh-BELL-um) is a mysterious part of the
brain. For a long time it had been known to control sophisticated movement
skills such as walking, hitting a baseball or riding a bicycle. It does
this by coordinating many different parts of the brain that are involved with
sensation and movement, making complex tasks child's play. In a way it
is the coach that makes everything involved in movement behave like team
players. But it is also deeply tied in to the other parts of the brain where emotions are processed. In the past few years, research has
shown the cerebellum to have a coordinating effect on conscious thoughts and
emotions. These two peach-sized lobes look--and act--like a miniature
brain. In fact the Latin word "cerebellum" actually means "small brain."
THE LIMBIC SYSTEM:
The limbic system (LIMM-bik) is a deep part of the
brain where the deep emotions are centered. It is called a "system" because it
is actually made up of a number of different centers controlling pleasure, rage,
fear, and other emotional reactions. Gentle touch stimulates the pleasure
centers in normal individuals. Eating sweets and learning new items of
interest also has a mild stimulating effect--a person can actually "hunger" for
knowledge. Hopefully this page reaches your limbic system rather than your
sleep centers!
THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX:
The prefrontal
cortex (PRE-front-al COR-tex) is the most highly evolved part of the brain.
It is "working memory" that allows you to keep several different things on your
mind at once. If you kept repeating a phone number of a wrecker service to
yourself while running to the nearest payphone, feeling in your pocket for
change for the phone, and remembering the name of the intersection where your
car was stalled, that activity would take place in the prefrontal cortex.
This area of the brain, sometimes called the "Frontal Lobes," is very important
in good social skills, allowing you to have good relationships with others.
It is responsible for shaping your emotions, organizing thoughts, controlling
impulses, your attention span, and problem solving. Damage to this area
causes a severe mental illness called schizophrenia.
SEROTONIN IS THE KEY:
While he was working at the National Institutes of
Health, Dr. Prescott sponsored a number of studies to show the effects of isolation
rearing on the brain of monkeys that could explain violent and abnormal behavior
patterns. Laboratory work finally proved that the limbic system and cerebellum
were damaged by isolation rearing.
It had been known for some time that unusually low levels of a brain-produced chemical called serotonin
(serr-oh-TONE-in) would cause
violent or suicidal behavior. Early researchers blamed the low levels of
serotonin on inheritance, for lack of a better explanation. Yet serotonin
is produced in parts of the brain now known to be damaged by isolation rearing. Dr. Prescott
came to the firm conclusion that isolation, not inheritance, set the stage for
emotional illness.
THE FINAL PIECE OF THE
PUZZLE:
The final step on the path to emotional
maturity does not involve brain chemistry. Parents serve as a role model
to their offspring. When infants are put together without an adult, a
practice called, "peer rearing," they do not master the social skills
of adulthood. They do not know good pairing and parenting behavior.
Peer rearing has been used in many breeding facilities as a substitute for adult
care giving, but it results in animals that over-react to stress and do not make
good parents. |
