ABSTRACT
Selectively distributed oscillatory systems of the brain exist as resonant communication networks through large populations of neurons, which work in parallel and are interwoven with sensory, motor, cognitive-, and emotional functions. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis cannot do so, as subjective states and social constructions are at core of the problems psychoanalysts seek to address and redress. Infants acquire knowledge about their caretakers and social world with remarkable speed, but exactly how they do it remains mostly a mystery. Among the unknowns is how infants acquire the skill to communicate their needs and anticipate the responses of their caregivers. Maternal gaze matching, facial expressions, vocalizations, and regulation of arousal states during face-to-face play provide critical environmental inputs during the sensitive period of maturation of the visual cortex. To close the circle and return to severe self pathologies, psychoanalysts would also speculate that the activity and oscillation of the mirror neuron system will be aberrant in borderline personality disorder and related conditions.
