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Psychoanalytical interpretations of fetal life are not in accord with the concept of a mindless, newborn brain which I propose, and some authors (183, 193) present a different viewpoint in approximately the following terms. In the intimate cloister of the mother, a growing being lives a peaceful, sheltered existence. In this uterine paradise, without fears or anxieties, the embryo must have a mother libido, and it experiences pleasure and pain, as demonstrated by impulsive movements and by the sucking responses which are expressions of pleasurable sexual sensations related to mental states of the fetus. Thinking and willing are perhaps present to only a limited extent, but feeling exists in the embryo with hypertrophic sensitivity.

One day, something terrible happens. The carefree, parasitic existence is terminated, and there is a brutal separation of the child from the libido object—the mother—causing a psychic trauma, the primal or original anxiety state. Later on, the child will try to return symbolically to its mother's womb, and subconsciously he may remember forever the states of embryonic life and the anxiety of birth. The child's neurosis is a natural result of his traumatic arrival. He is usually able to overcome it, although occasionally it persists during adult life. Sadger (193) reported that when he could not relate some patients' neuroses to their embryonic periods, he induced them to recall what happened to their original spermatozoa and ova, or even to remember possible parental attitudes which could have produced

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a trauma in the delicate germinal cells before conception. Sadger maintained that these cells have a psychic life of their own with the capacity to learn and to remember.

It is difficult to accept the introspective statement of a neurotic patient who claims to possess a spermatozoic memory, since experimental studies show that the reactions of newborn babies are so elemental that they can hardly be considered signs of a functioning mind. It is doubtful, if not indeed illogical, to attribute a higher degree of mental activity to a fetus at an even earlier stage of embryonic development.

The possible existence of psychic functions in the newborn has been repeatedly debated. Some authorities accept the presence in the infant of three primary emotions, fear, rage, and love, and believe that all other emotions result from the conditioning of these innate patterns by environmental stimuli (237). The theory of differential emotional patterns in the neonate suffered a serious blow when it was demonstrated that competent observers of infant behavior could not agree on their interpretations of emotional patterns recorded by moving pictures unless they knew the type of stimuli applied (204). The term "emotion" should not be ascribed to infant behavior because it lacks differentiated responses, and the existence of a "mind" in the neonate is really a matter of definition (116, 222).

The mind is characterized by many heterogeneous functions, some of which exist at birth, if only in elemental form. Symbolic processes as determined by correlation procedures (82) do not exist in the neonate, but temporary learning of simple conditioned responses has been demonstrated (213). Four conditions have been proposed as prerequisite to acceptance of the existence of intelligent behavior in any organism: (1) a functional cerebral cortex; (2) functional distance receptors; (3) an upright posture; and (4) the achievement of substitutive or symbolic behavior. According to these criteria, the neonate does not qualify for intelligent behavior, and its activities should not be considered signs of mental life (117). Careful studies of infants demonstrate that their eyes will

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follow small moving spots of light as early as two weeks after birth (32). Auditory sensitivity is controversial, and pitch discrimination and differential responses related to the patterning of sound seem to be absent (219). Auditory conditioning has been unsuccessful until the second month of life (125). The existence of olfactory perception and even gustatory discrimination is rather doubtful, but sour and bitter solutions influence sucking and may evoke facial responses. The newborn baby's ability to orient toward the nipple of the mothers breast is the most important response in his repertoire (172).

Human beings are born with such cerebral immaturity that their very survival depends completely on exterior help, and their behavior is similar to that of a purely spinal being, or at most, of a brain stem or midbrain preparation (44, 45, 139, 173). Most neurologists agree that the neonate is a noncortical being. After birth, there is a transitional period during which the cerebral cortex starts to function, and then its activities progressively increase until a reciprocal functional correlation is established with the rest of the brain.

It had been generally assumed that mammals were born with most of their cerebral neurons present and that further development was limited to some synaptic elaboration of the already existing neuronal network. Recent studies performed with radio tracers have revealed, however, that at least in the hippocampus, olfactory bulb, and cerebellar cortex of mammals, as many as 80 to 90 per cent of the neurons form only after the animal is born (3). Experience provided by sensory inputs from the environment influences the number as well as the structual connections of these postnatal cells. Moreover, as Cajal (25) suggested long ago, the microneurons of the cerebellum, which serve as association elements, develop after birth under the influence of the infant's behavioral activities. Therefore it can be said that the environment is absorbed as a structural part of the neurons in the developing brain.

The conclusive proof that performance of neonate behavior does not require a mind—or even a brain—derives from the

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study of several anencephalic beings in whom reflexes and behavioral manifestations were similar to those of normal babies. Some of these infants, born without cerebrums, lived for only one or two days, but others survived for two or more months and could be studied in great detail. One of the most famous cases was the mesencephalic child which had only midbrain, pons, and cerebellum, lacked pallidum, striatum, and cortex, and had only a few traces of diencephalon (84). This abnormal being had reduced motor performance, but the startle reaction and grasping reflexes were well preserved. He was able to assume a sitting position spontaneously when both lower legs were pressed, and occasionally he yawned and stretched his arms. He had periodic alternating states of quietude and activity resembling sleep and wakefulness. His feeding behavior was nearly normal and he could follow a moving finger with his eyes and head. He cried and was observed to suck his thumb spontaneously. The main difference between anencephalic and normal infants is that in a child lacking cortex and other parts of the brain, responses and activities remain stationary while a normal infant quickly develops new behavior patterns.

Having seen that mental functions in man cannot be demonstrated at birth, we may ask which elements are essential for their appearance and development, and we may wonder why the newborn baby is mindless. Why isn't the mind detectable at birth? Because it is hidden or dormant inside the neurons, or because it doesn't yet exist within the brain? These questions correspond to the following differing hypotheses: (1) Human beings, in comparison with other animals, are less developed at birth, being anatomically and physiologically immature and requiring a postnatal growing period in order to reach their expected potential. In this case, the essential elements for the appearance of the mind, which are determined genetically, are already present at birth, and only need time to develop and demonstrate their existence. The mind is there even if it cannot be detected. (2) A different point of view is that the brain is not sufficient to produce mental phenomena. The brain is

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only a reactive organizer of transactions of elements located in the environment and transmitted to the individual by sensory receptors and pathways. According to this hypothesis, the reception of extracerebral factors—the experience of living—is essential for the appearance of the mind and is the basic element upon which mental development is conditional. While instinctive behavior may appear even in the absence of experience, mental activity cannot.

Confronting these two theories, we face again the basic questions of the origin of mind and whether mental functions could appear simply by process of anatomical maturation. To find answers, we must be acquainted with some experimental facts. It is known that cerebral maturity in animals is of only relative value for behavioral performance. With merely 20 per cent of their neurons myelinated, 24-day-old white rats are trainable and can learn associations as well as adult rats (236). Early visual experience is important for the normal development of higher animals but is not essential in lower species. Rats raised in darkness since birth have no visual deficits when exposed to light for the first time (101). Birds also manage quite well, although ringdoves which have worn translucent goggles to block visual patterns but not light show a moderate decrease in the speed of learning pattern discrimination when their goggles are removed (207).

Studies of early visual deprivation in higher animals tell a different story. In one investigation, four baby chimpanzees were separated from their mothers shortly after birth and each was kept in a darkened room and given only ninety minutes' daily exposure to a limited, diffuse light (184). Seven months later, testing of the animals showed normal pupillary reactions to light, but lack of eye blink, visual fixation, and pursuit of moving objects. Unlike the control animals, these chimpanzees did not appear upset if they were fed by strangers, nor did they recognize their feeding bottles. In visual discrimination and conditioning tests, the animals reared in darkness required more than twice as many trials as did the control animals and

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committed over twice as many errors. After living for 3 1/2 months outside the darkened room, only one of the chimpanzees began to converge his eyes on an object brought into contact with his lips. In this animal, discrimination of vertical versus horizontal strips was soon acquired, while recognition of faces took much longer.

Biochemical studies have confirmed the importance of sensory stimulation for normal cerebral development. In animals deprived of sight or hearing, the corresponding neurons of the system do not develop biochemically. Their structure appears normal, but inside they are like "empty bags, impoverished in both RNA and proteins" (115). The importance of adequate sensory stimulation for postnatal neurochemical maturation has also been demonstrated by Brattg*!ard in his studies of retinal ganglion cells (22). During the early postnatal period, animals receiving normal light stimulation showed 100 per cent increase in cellular mass, as measured by the total amount of organic substance, while animals deprived of light did not show this change. Moderate sensory stimulation of the vestibular system caused by rotation of the body resulted in a 40 per cent increase in the RNA concentration in the vestibular ganglion cells and also an increase in amino acid absorption (91).

During the last fifteen years, researchers at Berkeley (13, 132, 190) have performed chemical-behavioral studies demonstrating that individual experience can lead to measurable alterations of the chemistry and anatomy of the brain. They started with the search for relations between naturally occurring differences in brain chemistry and differences in learning ability and then analyzed the effects of experience on brain chemistry. It was known that enriched early sensory inputs benefit subsequent learning, and the investigations were oriented to find the biochemical link between early environment and later effects. Experimental studies in rats proved that exposing litter mates to either enriched or impoverished environments for eight days produced in the enriched group significant increases in (1) the weight of cerebral cortex, (2) total activity of the enzyme

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acetylcholine esterase throughout the brain, (3) total activity of cholinesterase in the cortex, (4) thickness and vascularization of the cerebral cortex. Because acetylcholine is a possible transmitter substance, changes in the enzymes which regulate its appearance and breakdown have important functional significance. Increase in the number and connections of neurons should also have obvious consequences. Many years ago, the great Spanish histologist Cajal (25) suggested that cerebral activity could be correlated with the ramifications of cerebral neurons, and he drew attention to the small cells rich in synaptic connections. The total brain mass should be less important than its internal organization and wealth of connections for the exchange of information. Cajal knew that a talented person or even a genius did not necessarily have a large brain. Quality rather than total volume is crucial.

It is generally accepted that the brain of a newborn human baby is incomplete to a remarkable degree (41, 76, 118). In the primary sensory areas and the motor cortex, many characteristics including myelination, cortical width, and the number and size of cells are in an embryonic state. While anatomical maturation must influence brain functions, it is doubtful whether it is the decisive factor in mental activity. The limited role of maturation is illustrated by the behavior of premature babies, born after seven months of intrauterine life. Two months after birth, their reactions are more similar to those of a normal, full-term two-month-old baby than to a newborn. It is also true that although the pyramidal tract does not mature for two years, children are able to coordinate, walk, and perform voluntary movements many months before.

If a human being could grow physically for several years under complete sensory deprivation, it could be ascertained whether the appearance of mental activity is dependent upon extragenetic, extracerebral elements. My prediction is that such a being would not have mental functions. His brain would be empty and void of ideas; he would be without memory and incapable of understanding his surroundings. Such a person,

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although maturing physically, would remain as mentally naive as on the day of his birth. This experiment is, of course, unteasible. It would be unacceptable ethically, and it is technically impossible because even it sight, sound, taste, and olfaction could be blocked, touch and visceral proprioception extend throughout most of the body and could not be completely suppressed. Although the final proof of this extreme experiment will never be forthcoming, we have partial medical proof of the adverse effects of sensory deprivation on physiological development of children.

It is known that people who have lived for several years without a sensory receptor lack the mental functions related to the receptor that must transduce, bias, and pass on the incoming information. Some babies have been born with congenital cataracts in both eyes but have not suffered atrophy of the optic nerve. They grow up without any visual experience of shapes, objects, or patterns, being able to perceive only diffused light. During childhood, they learn to recognize surroundings by touch and by ear. They can identify a book, glass, or chair, and know people by their footsteps or voices. When some of these blind children were twelve to fourteen years old, their cataracts were removed, and for the first time they could see the physical world. During the first days, this visible world had no significance, and familiar objects such as a walking stick or favorite chair were recognized only when explored manually. A tedious learning process was necessary before these children could learn to evaluate lights and shades and interpret the barrage of optic sensations which were initially so confusing. After a long training period their visual recognition improved considerably, but it remained permanently impaired. For example, the distinction between a square and a hexagon required laborious and often erroneous manual counting of the corners, and a rooster was confused with a horse because both have tails (202). A very intelligent blind boy, whose sight was restored when he was eleven, identified a fish as a camel because he confused its dorsal fin with a camel's hump (239). Although

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this clinical data is based on a small number of patients some of whom may have had brain lesions as well as cataracts (243), the results indicate that the ability to perceive patterns does not pre-exist in cerebral organization, but is learned through experience, and that in man the early postnatal period is of decisive importance in the acquisition of cerebral mechanisms for the perception and symbolization of sensory stimuli.

In agreement with the results of visual deprivation in patients is the very poor performance of native African children in the form board intelligence test (162). The natives were far superior to white men in detecting hunting tracks in the forest but were completely unfamiliar with and unable to discriminate between the geometrical patterns used in the test. These findings illustrate that visual discrimination is one mental activity which must be learned, and that in the human brain, cerebral development and organization are not sufficient for the performance of mental functions. Genetic factors are not enough; experience is essential. "At conception individuals are quite alike in intellectual endowment. ... It is the life experience and the sociocultural milieu influencing biological and psychological function which . . . makes human beings significantly different from each other" (170).

The decisive role of infantile experiences in the development of individual personality and its disorders was the main theme of Freud's historic investigations (80), which have shaped the thinking of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and laymen to the present time. The central experience of the period of childhood is the infant relation to his mother, and the events of the first years leave a much greater mark on physiological and behavioral characteristics than those which occur later in life. Piaget also has stressed that the first eighteen months of life are crucial for the establishment of sensory motor intelligence and for the formation of the ego (177).

Perhaps the most dramatic evidence that the capacity to love is not inherited but may appear "at first sight" is the process of imprinting. As Lorenz (149) has shown, the young of some

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bird species become attached to the first moving object they perceive. Normally this object is their mother, but in his work with ducks, Lorenz presented himself at the moment of hatching as the mother substitute. The little ducklings were imprinted with the image of Dr. Lorenz and followed him obediently with apparent filial affection. The strength of bonds established in the young depend on the qualities of the stimulus (shape, sounds, odors) and on the timing of the reception. In the duck, the most effective imprinting takes place soon after hatching, while beyond a certain age it cannot take place at all.

The studies of the Harlows (92, 94) in rhesus monkeys confirmed the decisive importance of early sensory inputs as determinants of behavior and also the existence of a critical period early after birth for establishment of the capacity for affection. Deprivation incurred by isolating baby monkeys from their mothers or peers irreversibly blighted the animals' capacity for social adjustments. The period between the third and sixth months was found to be most critical for their development. Animals deprived of contact during this phase exhibited aberrant behavior which persisted throughout their adulthood even when they were placed within control groups. The behavioral abnormalities included staring fixedly into space, stereotyped motility, clasping their heads in their hands, rocking for long periods of time, development of compulsive habits, self-aggressive tendencies with self-inflicted body damage, and abnormal sexuality with unsuccessful mating. In monkeys the ability to love is not inherited and if it is not learned during early life, the deprived individual forever loses the capacity to establish bonds of affection and remains socially and sexually aberrant.

In another series of experiments, it was demonstrated that "the ability to solve problems without fumbling is not inborn but is acquired gradually" (93). When monkeys faced a simple discrimination test such as selection of an object according to its color or shape for the reward of raisins or peanuts, learning was initially haphazard. After the animals had learned to solve

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several similar problems, their behavior changed dramatically and they showed increasing insight until eventually, when faced with a new problem, they could solve it in a single trial. Parallel studies have been performed with children showing that in man, as in monkeys, there is no evidence of any innate endowment that enables them to solve instrumental problems. The conclusions of these findings are that "animals, human and subhuman, must learn to think. Thinking does not develop spontaneously as an expression of innate abilities; it is the end result of a long learning process," and that "the brain is essential to thought, but the untutored brain is not enough, no matter how good a brain it may be" (93).

The classical controversy about the nature-nurture dichotomy has lost its original simplicity. The problem is not to separate innate from learned behavioral patterns, because in most cases there is a reciprocal influence between pre-existing and acquired factors. The problem is to identify the specific roles and mechanisms in the collaborative effort between heredity and environment (102, 227). To be specific, let us consider language as the most outstanding manifestation of human mental qualities. The potentiality to talk depends on genetic factors which exist in man at the moment of birth, while they are lacking in the rest of the zoological scale, including the big apes. It is known that after the most patient training, some chimpanzees living with human foster parents have been able to pronounce a few simple words such as "papa" and "mama" and "cup," but they have never learned to converse or to say complex phrases. Language potentiality in the human baby signifies the existence of a functioning brain that can be trained to store information and also to combine, modify, and use it for performance of the specific function of talking. Potentiality is like a beautiful highway, able to accommodate traffic and facilitate the exchange of visitors among many cities. The highway, however, cannot create cars, trucks, merchandise, businessmen, workers, and all the life which circulates along it. The road makes functions possible, but by itself it is a useless stretch of pavement. The

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potential of verbal communication is not enough to learn to talk, and it is necessary to be repeatedly exposed to sensory inputs from an environment which includes family and friends. The baby brain does not invent language nor can it choose to learn either English or Chinese: It is entirely dependent on information which must come from the outside. The genetic structure of the individual establishes the mechanisms for receiving and handling the inputs, and in the case of language it may also be responsible for the modulation of accessory elements of speech, such as tone and inflexion of voice, and for the facilitation of some tendencies related to learning of words and formation of concepts, but if a baby is not exposed to language, then there are no materials to be received, modulated or facilitated, and his potentialities will remain dormant.

This is true for many other mental functions which will not appear in the absence of appropriate sensory inputs. An important point is that the choice of the necessary information cannot be made by the baby himself because at the beginning he is completely helpless and dependent. The decisive responsibilities of providing information to structure the initial organization of the baby's mind is assumed by those in charge of the infant. As stated by Geertz (85), "there is no such thing as a human nature independent of culture. Men without culture would not be the clever savages of Golding's Lord of the Flies. They would not be, ... as classical anthropological theory would imply, intrinsically talented apes who had somehow failed to find themselves. Instead, they would be monstrosities with few useful instincts, fewer recognizable sentiments, and no intellect."