Emotional deprivation early in life has a similar effect. Dawson and colleagues (1997)
monitored the brain wave patterns of children born to depressed mothers. One of the
symptoms of maternal depression is less touching and interaction with their infants. These
children showed markedly reduced activity in the left frontal lobe of the brain / the centre
for joy and other light-hearted emotions. Their brain patterns closely tracked the ups and
downs of their mothers’ depression. At age three the brain patterns of children of the more
severely depressed mothers or those whose depression lasted longer, continued to show
abnormally low readings. However, the children of mothers who had managed to rise above
their depression and play with and give attention to their babies had a more normal brain
pattern. Furthermore, the brain activity improved in those children whose mothers
recovered from their depression before their infants were a year old. However, this ability
to rebound reduces as a child gets older because there are now considered to be sensitive
periods for brain development. The greatest growth spurt closes at about ten years and from
then on the weaker synapses are destroyed if they are not used or transformed by
experience. The first year-and-a-half, however, are the most important in the time- scale of
brain development.