The McCarrison Society - NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition

NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition

Article Index
NL 40/1: Special Generating Healthy Brains Edition
Chairman's comments
GHB Special Report On The McCarrison Society
GHB:Report by Conference Organiser Rev Simon House, MA
GHB: Preconception to late adolescence:
GHB: From past to present: evolution and epigenetics
GHB: CLEAVE LECTURE Nutrition, the brain and mental ill health
GHB: Our changing diet; deficits and disorders
GHB: Genomic imprinting for brain development and behaviour
GHB: 'Brainfoods': Modulating brain structure and function
GHB: The effects of maternal anxiety or stress during pregnancy
GHB: Cornerstones in the Psychobiological Development of Mankind:
GHB: A psycho-soma integration perspective
GHB: 'New Parenting', psychotherapy, prenatal
GHB: Attention deficit disorders
GHB: Priorities in Research Funding
GHB:Into the future; avoiding the cost of folly
GHB: References
News
Mind What You Eat
McCarrison meeting with Sustain
Future Events

Page 12 of 22

GHB: The Two Cornerstones in the Psychobiological Development of Mankind: The increase in frequency of pregnancies during the neolithic revolution and ‘physiological prematurity’

Dr. Ludwig Janus MD: ISPPM President 1995-2005, Heidelberg – described the human being as a product of both biological and psychological factors, the two being interconnected. During the Neolithic revolution, stock-farming and agriculture led to protein-enriched nutrition significantly increasing the rate of pregnancy. Women could become pregnant annually, rather than every 4 years or so as before. But this demanded too much of the mother for the bonding needs of her children, and contributed in early high cultures to increased dependency and aggressiveness.

Also the infant’s large human brain, within with the mother’s upright posture, required babies to be born some 12 months earlier than the equivalent of other mammals (allowing for weight). This so-called ‘physiological prematurity’, leaving babies so helpless and vulnerable, led to the unique development of appeals – by smiles, gestures, voice exchanges and eye-
contact – to obtain from mothers and fathers that vital substitute for this early birth: exceptional extended care. Perhaps from this primal social acquirement comes our creation of protective spaces, characteristic of our cultures – institutions, buildings, and social spaces. Dr. Janus contemplated the psycho-
social implications of shorter pregnancy intervals and ‘psycho-physiological prematurity’.

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