The Brains of Babies During Emotional Maturity
Exploring the Amygdala and Visual Cortex
As humans, it is largely believed that we are born with the ability to showcase complex emotions. While this may feel true on some fronts, we weren’t born with the level of intense and mature brain circuitry that we possess as adults.
While scanning the brains of newborns, researchers found that the parts of the brain associated with emotion, are not as functionally or optimally connected to the regions of the brain associated with auditory or visual stimuli.
Analyzing the brains of 40 newborns that were less than a week old using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the same researchers compared these babies to fMRI scans from 40 adults who participated in another study surrounding the brain.
As adults, our brains can make various connections to the deepest corners of our imagination, such as allowing us to feel emotional complexity, like the mixture of fear and arousal when watching a film that features an attractive but frightening villain.
As adults, we are also able to emotionally regulate ourselves across various social contexts, such as life-threatening situations where we cannot showcase how we truly feel. Babies cannot immediately do this, and it makes sense, given that they have yet to develop those bonds and experiences.
More specifically, when you’re an adult, there is one particular functional connection that contrasts from babies, the amygdala, a major part of the brain associated with emotions, and the occipitotemporal cortex, an area associated with processing emotionally-charged but visual stimuli, such as objects, faces, and bodies.
However, as adults, the same amygdala is not as strongly connected to the other functions of the occipitotemporal cortex, such as consciously detecting lines, edges, angles, and lights, as they’re not as intellectually or emotionally stimulating.
When you’re a newborn, all connections of the amygdala towards the occipitotemporal and auditory complexes are generally similar. It’s a curious finding since it is largely believed that babies are born with a large level of neural connections, where these connections become readjusted, stabilized, and reinforced in the years that follow.
Since babies aren’t born with the ability to understand complexities surrounding emotion, newborns are basically like little scientists, scanning and assessing the environment and the people operating within it, before making those final decisions that shape their formative years.
Even if the analysis performed by babies is at a basic level, it’s rather fascinating. The next time you see or interact with a baby, you might find yourself wondering how much wisdom is harboured inside their tiny heads.
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