The Responsive Brain Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University The Discovering Psychology Series

The relationship between brain and behavior is reciprocal. The brain controls behavior, but behavior feeds back information to influence the brain.

In this sense we can talk about the responsive brain as well as the behaving brain.

Because it is designed to be modified by the behavior it has caused and environmental stimulation, the brain is constantly open to change. It can alter its own functioning and even its structure. As it learns more as it becomes more knowledgeable and sophisticated about the world around it. This capacity for internal modification makes the brain one of the most dynamic systems on the planet.

To understand how this two way process of brain and behavior really works, lets use touch as an example. Touch is the silent language by which people communicate everything from friendship and love to their need to control others. . . .

The consequences of being touch deprived are extremely significant. Not only for our sense of security and emotional well being. But also for our physical health and this is where the brain comes in. For in between the act of touching or being touched and its positive consequences is the brain which apparently creates a need for touch. And the most the critical need is at the beginning, at birth. The need for a mother’s touch is such that both humans and animals thrive when they get it and suffer badly when they don’t . . .

Daily touch sessions for premature infants while remaining inside their intensive care incubators. The premature babies that were massaged for 45 minutes for 10 days before they were discharged gained 47 % more weight. They were more active they were more alert. When you see these babies at 8 months they are still showing a weight advantage and are showing better cognitive development and better motor development. Research by Dr. Tiffany Field.

Dr. Saul Schamberg demonstrated similar effects with animal models (rats). Enzyme ODC went way down under conditions of short term separation from mother rats resulting in impairment of growth. “The need for a mother’s touch is really brain based. . . It is a requirement of the normal growth and development of the baby.”

Institutionalized youngsters who were emotionally deprived. Their rate of growth was significantly below the normal range (Bowlby and Spitz). Psychosocial dwarfism. It seems to be mediated by the hypothalamus which normally stimulates the pictorially gland to secrete growth hormones. The lack of touching may have had the same effect as with the baby rats.

Permanent alterations in the structure of the brain have been demonstrated and were discussed in the next segment of the video.