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What do we know and what are we learning about what might be the ‘seat of the self’ within the neural networks of the brain?  Inquiring minds want to know, and mine is certainly one of those inquiring minds.

How could a human being come to hate a newborn infant?  What happened in my mother’s early brain-forming stages of infant-child development that so altered the way her brain worked that she could severely abuse me for 18 years from the moment of my birth?  What was wrong with her SELF?

An article traveled to me through the circuitous route of a Yahoo.com group I recently joined that has me on a run down Brain Neuroscience Way.  What intrigues me most about it is not that neuroscientists discovered brain patterns of activation among people as they read particular concrete nouns that match one another to the point that the researchers could accurately predict how these particular words would show up in action in people’s brains — without watching the actual brains in action.

In other words, this article is about how humans are becoming able to watch other people’s thoughts as they think them — and predict the manner of commonality of similar brain activation patterns in others.  See my working note pages on this 2010 research study HERE.

What struck me as I carefully studied this intricate research report is that the region of the brain that responded to the concept of ‘shelter’ as presented in related concrete nouns has also been implicated in other research as being the possible seat of the self — of consciousness, self-reflection, image processing, and autobiographical memory.  Is it possible that all of my mother’s brain early brain developmental changes completely interfered with the development and operation of this area of her brain (along with a host of others?)

This next article then came into my view today entitled The Precuneus and Consciousness by Andrea E. Cavanna, MD. (click on this link and scroll down a page to get to the main article — it’s fascinating).  This article is a continued presentation of information about this particular brain region I find intriguing, especially the part I put into bold type below.  The abstract to this 2007  study states:

“This article reviews the rapidly growing literature on the functional anatomy and behavioral correlates of the precuneus, with special reference to imaging neuroscience studies using hamodynamic techniques. The precuneus, along with adjacent areas within the posteromedial parietal cortex, is among the most active cortical regions according to the “default mode” of brain function during the conscious resting state, whereas it selectively deactivates in a number of pathophysiological conditions (ie, sleep, vegetative state, drug-induced anesthesia), and neuropsychiatric disorders (ie, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia) characterized by impaired consciousness. These findings, along with the widespread connectivity pattern, suggest that the precuneus may play a central role in the neural network correlates of consciousness. Specifically, its activity seems to correlate with self-reflection processes, possibly involving mental imagery and episodic/autobiographical-memory retrieval.”

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I strongly suspect that these same altered patterns will be found to occur within a severe Borderline Personality Disorder brain — like my mother’s was.  I see all the signs of this being true.  I just have to study this further to make my own connections.

The 2010 article I mentioned above suggested to me that in the early evolutionary origins of the human ability to begin to have a self probably used the same brain circuitry that we currently use to process shelter-related information as it relates to containment and ‘boundaries’ having to do with what is either inside or outside of an individual self.  That is, if things go right during one’s brain development.

My mother included ME as a part of her own projected self-identification.  She could not tell that I was separate from her.  It is a known characteristic of the Borderline condition that self-reflection processes do not operate normally.  Because of patterns of dissociation built into the early brain when neglect, maltreatment and abuse is present in an infant-child’s environment, I believe the ability to recall one’s own self in episodic, autobiographical memory retrieval is also fundamentally changed.

I am obviously on a mission to understand what happened to my mother to make her into the terrible, terrifying, terrorizing monster that she was.  She did not have a stable brain that operated like normal people’s brains do.  My search for information about the operation of the precuneous region of the brain involves a search for the seat not only of the self, but of consciousness that makes having a separate, individual, private self possible in the first place.

I will keep you posted on my progress as I make my way next through Cavanna’s 2007 article.  In reality, I am searching for my lost true mother.  Where was the self of my Borderline mother?  What happened to her?  When and how did she get lost?

And more importantly, how can learning about the precuneus region of our brain help us to understand how safe and secure early infant-child attachment operates to help a human being develop a clear, healthily boundaried structure of the self within a sanctuary of its own within the brain-mind?

“The precuneus, a long neglected cortical area located in the posteromedial aspect of the parietal lobe, has received particular attention over the last few years, since the functional neuroimaging era has started unravelling unexpected patterns of behavioral correlates. Specifically, the precuneus represents a key region in the interlinked network of the “default mode” brain areas (ie, a midline fronto-parietal core) that shows high metabolic activity during conscious rest and selectively deactivates during non-self-directed cognitive tasks.”

“…it seems reasonable to assume that precuneus activity influences an extensive network of cortical and subcortical structures involved in elaborating highly integrated and associative information, rather than directly processing external stimuli.”

“Furthermore, this model is neuroanatomically acceptable in that the identified regions comprise a network of areas that are relatively distant (as measured by cortico-cortical connections) from primary sensory areas and could thus be expected to participate primarily in conceptual rather than perceptual functions. Overall, during the baseline resting state this neural system is likely to be engaged in higher mental functions involving something similar to contemplative thought against a background of general body awareness, upon which any extended consciousness is constructed.”  (Cavanna 2007)

My mother’s version of ‘higher mental’ functioning seemed to be as disintegrated as was her capacity to experience ‘contemplative thought’.  I think there was something terribly wrong with my mother’s precuneus.   If having a clearly defined conscious self was a late developing advantage that evolution gave to humans, my mother didn’t get one.

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