Extensive scientific research in animals and humans have documented, without question, that mother-infant/child separations (loss of bonding/mother love) induces a variety of developmental brain disorders that mediate depression, impulse dyscontrol, chronic stimulus-seeking behaviors that includes self-mutilation, and the violence of homicide and suicide.

Well, not quite. But if I'm understanding this fascinating summary of Prescott's research, The Origins of Human Love and Violence, the deal is that babies deprived of a) touch, and/or b) movement grow up with messed up brains that leads to increase substance abuse, suicide, depression, etc. For example there are studies on monkeys, where if you raise them in isolation they turn out whacked. But if you raise them in a robotic swing, they don't turn out whacked.

Its very interesting that its not just "sensory deprivation". The blind and deaf can have normal brain development. It's specifically lack of touch and movement that cause the brain to develop poorly. The reason seems to be that the movement system, at least, is the dominant sensory system in the womb, because the mother is moving around all the time. Not sure why touch, as opposed to hearing, I would think there would be more sound stimuli.

I know very little neuroscience, but it sounds like it has to do with poor development of the cerebellum, which is necessary to regulate the limbic system. Given the intimate relationship between the limbic system and emotions, I can certainly believe that an unregulated limbic system would be related to psychosis.

Prescott was developing a way to measure spikes in brain activity that are related to acts of violence, as a way of developing a test to measure "dangerousness", but the NIH wouldn't fund it.

He studied 49 tribal societies, divided into violent and not violent. He also did a single measure of maternal-infant bonding, and given this single variable could predict with 80% accuracy whether the society is violent. Now, its hard to say which is correlation and which is causation here, but if there is even some element of causation, its rather interesting for modern society, which has less of that bonding. Prescott was one of the leaders, back in the 70's, pioneering the idea that lack of touch as a child led to violence as an adult.

More information at the site "Origins of Peace and Violence".

(I came across this while studying babywearing, the practice of wearing your baby in a sling all day, instead of leaving it in a crib. Babywearing reduces crying and promotes development.)