At the moment, most researchers use the temperament to refer to behaviors rather than brain profiles. Brain profiles are definitive, permanent, inherited brain anatomies. In my blog writings to this point, I leaned toward behaviors rather than brain profiles.
Part of the reason concerns my sister’s schizophrenia and my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I started life loving and trusting, but my love was unrequited. I would take my mother’s hand and draw it to my face as I lay in my bed, but as soon as I let go she withdrew it. She would never caress or lovingly touch me. And so, of course, she did not ever kiss me.
My first memory involving my sister was taking a family drive down a country road and my sister began singing. When she would not stop, my father stopped the car, got out, opened the back door and dragged her out of the car, then got back in and drove away. That was my first memory of the ongoing vicious maltreatment of my sister.
Zan was gifted, if not genius, though stubborn, if not a bit defiant. She wanted to do things she loved, like singing operas in the house. She memorized operas in their native tongue sung with a voice that to my memory matched some of the famous opera singers. She did not go beyond eighth grade, but read all the classics, and especially loved French literature. She was my talking dictionary, but my relatives knew Zan as a sick, sick, girl who was a drain on my parents’ resources.
The amygdala is the emotional responder. It sends out panic signals to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a part of the prefrontal executive cortex located right about the middle of the skull. The amygdala sends out urgent distress signals to the ACC. In an adult, the ACC responds by sending “chill” signals to other parts of the prefrontal cortex that relay back to the amygdala to “chill.”
But in children under age 10, the ACC is still underdeveloped and can only get a weak signal back to the amygdala. So the amygdala wins out and relays back to the ACC a panic alert. With the communication breakdown, anxiety builds to panic instead of soothing the frontal cortex back down.
Most kids will be soothed by caresses and words of loving parents. But not my premie three-month-old grandson Dashel. At first he cries, but almost instantly that builds to a very hard to listen to piercing scream. He can’t be soothed or put back down. In fact, he can’t be put down at all. If held and soothed, he will quiet down, but then he pees, poops or needs feeding, and then it starts up all again. He can never be put down. He must be nursed by Hiromi and sleep on Jared’s chest. And this goes on and on 24/7, leaving two loving parents bewildered and exhausted.
Nobody believes them which makes it even worse. They say Hiromi and Jared are spoiling Dash, which may be true. Just put him down and let him scream for a while. He will soon quiet down. I thought so, too. Until I spent a few days with them. Now my wife and I are perhaps the only believers.
Dashel has two loving and caring parents totally emersed with him. They do not want Dashel to turn out like Zan or me. But his ACC simply will not trigger the rational brain to chill. Not at all. It is on an anxiety-panic feedback loop.
Zan and I were ruined by neglectful, abusive parenting. Our normal genes epigenetically switched off and our sick, sick genes epigenetically switched on. Did Dashel inherit the normal genes switched off and the bad genes switched on? Hopefully, his loving, caring parents will epigenetically trigger the good genes to switch back on and the sick, sick genes to switch back off.
Stay posted!
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
