You heard me remark about his reflexes. Are you aware of what the reappearance of infantile reflexes implies? In a normal adult, such reactions would indicate severe brain damage. In his case, they’re merely indicators that his neurophysiology is regressing to match the rest of his tissues. The neurological structures that were overlaid by learning in early childhood are disappearing and exposing the primitive reflexes of infancy. Neurologically speaking, there’s very little difference between the gross anatomical structure of an adult brain and an infant’s brain. The only real physical differences between the brains of children and adults are the microscopic neurological changes that are created as a consequence of the development of communication and locomotor skills, i.e., the dendritic interconnections between the neurons.

As you have probably noticed, Howard is losing or has already lost the neurological pathways that make his brain different from a normal infant’s brain. In other words, he’s well on his way to developing the mind of an infant. You’ve seen how he’s behaved in the past week. He e hhas the emotional control of an eight-month-old infant. Even if he could still speak, he would still feel an almost overwhelming need to cry if he felt uncomfortable or frustrated. His cortical control over his emotions is shot. All he has left is the cognitive functions of recognition and reason. Believe me, at this rate, he won’t have them much longer either. Without work or an adult interactions, he hasn’t had a personal yardstick to measure his personality against. The shear lack of daily adult experiences have insured that his viewpoint would change. The boredom of a baby’s existence guaranteed that his conscious mind would snatch at the crumbs of experience and force him to adapt to his surroundings. His adult memories may still be there, but it won’t be long before he won’t be able to make any contextual sense of them. How could he? A person’s personality is ultimately defined by its contextual milieu and social contacts. That’s how brainwashing works; all that’s necessary is to destroy human’s weltlichkeit is to make him helpless and dependent while redefining his relationship to the world. It doesn’t take long for the subconscious to adapt to it’s new surroundings. The will to survive under any condition is built into our genes. Little Bri-Bri isn’t able to resist his genetic heritage. His instinct for survival is causing him to behave in the manner that brings him the things he needs. If he can’t make verbal demands, he’ll cry for attention. He’s not part of the male-dominated “good old boy” power structure anymore. He’s alone now and babies don’t have male friends to reinforce their aggressive behavior. Men aren’t part of babies’ environments. The only adults that babies are exposed to are the women who take care of them. If he wants to make friends, he has to act coy and be as sweet and adorable as possible so that the women he’s surrounded with will overlook his obvious deficiencies and react positively towards him. Women want babies who are cute and adorable. It’s programmed into their DNA. Have you ever wondered why cartoon characters have such large eyes? Large eyes are the most recognizable facial characteristic of an infant. Cartoon creators want to insure that their creations capture the attention of their audiences. What better way than to appeal to the most basic instinct of humans than to subconsciously trigger parental attentiveness? And it’s not just women who are affected, all humans are drawn to the wide, innocent look of big eyes. If you don’t think men are affected by big eyes, think about how women use makeup to make their eyes look bigger! It’s a subconscious attempt to get men to nurture and care for them as if they were helpless. It makes men feel good to be able to take care of dependent women in the same way that women enjoy taking care of babies. People want to feel protective and loving; it’s built into the circuitry of the limbic brain. Why do you think that parents are so easily woken at night by a baby’s cries? We’re programmed by our DNA to react to a baby’s cry by running to it’s aid.

You’re not immune to the effects of your DNA either. Have you noticed that you’re reacting to him as if you’re his mother? You are his mother, you know. I suspect that the adult attachment that you formed to the man you married has already begun to change into maternal love and concern for his welfare. You can’t help yourself. He sees you differently too. You’re the one who bathes him, changes his diapers, feeds him and tucks him in his crib at night. Who else but his mommy would do that for him? I’m sure he still loves you, but its in an entirely different way that he did two months ago. Babies don’t see their mommies as sex objects. Mommies are the providers, the protectors, the source of all that a baby needs. There’s no basis for equality in your relationship now. He’s an infant and you’re his mommy. He can’t help seeing you that way and neither can you deny your maternal feelings toward him. Women and their infants are predisposed by nature to react positively to each other. I’ve seen women who’ve hated babies melt at the sight of their first baby. Once a woman has bonded with a baby, she’s willing to forgive almost anything they do. Is it any wonder that most babies are charmers? Babies behave the way they do to secure their survival. They need women to care for them every minute of the day, so they expend a tremendous amount of energy insuring that their mommies think they’re the cutest, most adorable creature that ever crawled at their feet. Why do you think that an ingratiating smile is one of the first facial expressions a baby learns? It takes a lot of charm to overcome the smell of a stinky diaper. Babies are experts at manipulating the maternal feelings of women. Howard did it when he was an infant and won’t have any problem re-learning how it’s done.

Look at him! He’s a baby now, in every sense of the word. Have you noticed how he follows you with his eyes everywhere you go? My observers in the nursery tell me that he already evidences maternal separation syndrome when you leave him. He’s becoming emotionally dependent on you as well as dependent on you to meet his physical needs. Have you noticed how much he seems to enjoy your touch when you change his diaper or hold him? His emotions have already begun regressing into infancy and his conscious mind won’t be lagging far behind. The neural connections on the left side of his brain are reorganizing themselves into a condition approximating that of a pre-speech infant. My observers in the nursery tell me that he recently lost autonomic control of his epiglottis. If he’s not burped immediately after a formula feeding, he spits up the contents of his stomach just like all the other infants in the nursery. He had already lost the ability to control his tongue and vocal apparatus sufficiently well enough to enable him to speak. This implies that the left front part of the brain called Broca’s area and to a lesser extent, his cerebellum have begun to disassociate. His short term memory is rapidly failing and his long term memory is deteriorating almost as quickly. He’ll soon lose the links with Wernicke’s area in the rear of the brain. That region processes language and allows his mind to decode sounds to understand the meaning of words. When the links to those areas are gone, he’ll have the normal aphasia of early infancy. Without the ability to use words to think, his reasoning powers will approximate those of an infant at the same developmental stage. His sensory perceptions will overshadow his primitive thinking in importance. Have you noticed how he’s begun to put everything within reach into his mouth? The limbic area of the brain has begun to take control of his psyche. His sense of taste and smell have become as acute as an infant’s while the importance his brain attaches to sights and sounds has declined. Don’t get me wrong; his acoustical sense is sharper than it has been since he was an infant, it’s just that his brain has reordered the priority of his sensory inputs. His psychosensorium is almost completely oral now. We can see from his behavior in the past few days that the limbification of his psyche is already well underway. Soon his emotions will be ruled by his need for physical comfort rather than by rational thought.

We’ve documented that his kinesthetic sense has also deteriorated. He can’t tell with his eyes closed where his arms and legs are in relation to his body. While his tactile sense of warmth and cold have remained as well as his ability to discern the relative softness or hardness of a surface, he can’t perceive whether he’s wet or has dirtied his diaper. His ability to perceive muscular sensations and use them to control his lower body has become severely impaired. This explains why in the past week we have observed a marked predilection for creeping on all fours rather than to try to walk or stand.

My researchers have observed that his attention span has decreased dramatically within the past two weeks and is still declining. We haven’t bothered to test his remaining cognitive verbal functions. It would only serve to reinforce and maintain the dendritic connections in the verbal areas of his brain. It’s not as if we’re here to rehabilitate him. My people are only interested in observing the deterioration of his locomotor skills and mental acuity. They told me yesterday that he had difficulty stacking blocks in towers more than three blocks high. That’s a positive indication of the neurological regression of his higher mental functions into an infantile state. However, his loss of motor skills is not caused simply by the physical limitations of babyhood. He’s losing his ability to concentrate and reason. We’ve discovered that he’s already having difficulties enumerating groups of objects greater than five. By the way, a limit of five is the same approximate skill level of numeracy that’s normal for a baby of eight months. By next week, I suspect that he’ll begin to have difficulties making stacks of two blocks. At his current rate of mental deterioration, a baby rattle will be a fascinating enigma to him within a month, possibly less.”

Fran laughed with an air of triumph as she declared, “Playing pattycake will be the absolute limit of his mental ability!” Her demeanor sobered a bit as she resumed her professional countenance. Nevertheless, she chuckled in feminine amusement as she said, “In the end, the high point of his day will be nursing and messing in his diaper afterwards. Speaking of nursing, you should be just about ready to give him his surprise.” Howard whimpered at the thought of his future, knowing instinctively that the doctor was right. He felt an irresistible urge to suck his thumb even in the presence of the two women who had conspired to turn him into a permanent infant.