When they heard very angry-sounding speech while sleeping, the babies living with parents who had persistent conflicts, compared with those in less conflict-filled homes, had higher activation in the brain areas that regulate emotion and stress. In one study, while infants age 6 to 12 months were sleeping, their brains were scanned by fMRI. Surprisingly, even much more moderate environmental stressors, such as exposure to persistent, albeit nonphysical, conflict between parents, may take a serious toll. The plasticity of the brain, especially in the first year of life, makes infants highly vulnerable to damage in their key neural systems if they have extremely adverse experiences, such as severe maltreatment or uncaring institutional rearing. It is critical to keep infants’ stress levels from becoming chronically activated and to promote the formation of close, warm attachments so the babies feel secure and safe. How lovingly and caringly infants are nurtured, or how cruelly and coldly they are neglected or abused, is inscribed in their brains and changes who they become. In the infant’s first few months outside the womb, soothing, rocking, feeding, and cuddling become a major job for caregivers, night and day. At birth, infants are controlled almost completely by their internal state at each moment and by caregivers on whom they depend.
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