Connecting Emotions and Actions in the Infant Brain - Decolonial Neuroscience – LATAN Brain Bee SfN 2025
Connecting Emotions and Actions in the Infant Brain - Decolonial Neuroscience – LATAN Brain Bee SfN 2025
First-Person Consciousness
“I am consciousness in formation. Before words, I am hands that grasp, eyes that seek. When I see sadness, something in me holds tighter. Without being taught, I learned that others affect me—not through logic, but through sensation. My consciousness doesn’t emerge from ideas, but from touch, from breath, from the tension spreading through my body as I sense what others feel. Each gesture I make is my body saying: ‘I am here, with you.’”
Study Overview – Roberti et al. (2025)
Title: Hold on Tight! Linking Emotions and Actions in the Infant Brain
Objective
To investigate whether 5-month-old infants modulate their grip strength depending on observed facial expressions (happy, sad, or neutral), and to identify the brain regions involved in this response.
Methodology
Participants: 5-month-old infants
Techniques: Grip strength measured via sensors; brain activity recorded using EEG/ERP
Procedure: Infants watched videos of emotional facial expressions while holding an object equipped with force sensors. Brain responses and grip pressure were recorded.
Key Findings
Stronger grip strength was observed when infants viewed sad faces — as if their bodies were saying “don’t let go.”
The response is automatic and embodied, not mediated by language or cognition.
ERP data revealed activation of emotional salience circuits, especially LPP (Late Positive Potential).
The physical action (grip) seemed to precede conscious emotion recognition, suggesting an early perception-action coupling.
Emotional stimuli modulated basic motor actions, indicating an early bond between affect and movement.
Interpretation Through Our Concepts
Scientific Observation | Our Concept | Interpretation |
Grip increases with sad faces | Tensional Selves (Eus Tensionais) | The sadness of the other reorganizes the infant's body, creating a supportive “tensional self”—a motor-affective gesture. |
Pre-verbal, bodily response | Damasian Mind | Consciousness arises from bodily perception in the world—without needing words. |
Baby grips before understanding | Wisdom Before Thought | The gesture reveals a relational, intuitive wisdom: the body knows before reason. |
Gesture as relational extension | APUS – Body-Territory | The gripping hand is not just physical but part of a living relational territory. |
Others’ emotion triggers action | QSH – Human Quorum Sensing | The baby already acts as part of a group—others’ suffering reorganizes their internal state. |
Perception–action circuits | Zone 2 | The infant is in an attentive, sensitive state—maximizing learning and bonding. |
Analytical Expansion
This study by Roberti et al. (2025) powerfully reinforces that human consciousness is bodily from the very beginning of life. When the infant grips tighter in response to sadness, they are not mimicking behavior—they are restructuring their emotional posture to maintain connection. This simple act represents the roots of embodied empathy: before we think, we feel; before we act, we tense.
The most striking revelation is that action comes before conceptual emotion recognition, invalidating theories that view the infant as a blank slate. It supports our belief that the mind is born into a state of relational bodily belonging.
Additionally, the presence of ERP components like LPP (~400–700ms) shows that the infant brain is already prioritizing emotionally salient stimuli—critical for developing tensional selves and safe attachment.
Commentary
In this study, consciousness is not an abstract entity—it is a network of affective resonance organized through the body. When the baby grips tighter, they are literally shaping themselves with the presence of the other. This is first-person consciousness, where the other is not perceived as external information but as part of the body-territory (APUS).
This study could be seen as early neuroscientific evidence of APUS and shows how complex affective presences modulate basic physiological functions—laying the groundwork for future moral and social cognition.
Post-2020 References
Khalsa, S. S., & Lapidus, R. C. (2021). Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Ciaunica, A., et al. (2021). Consciousness and the Embodied Self. Neuroscience of Consciousness.
Farroni, T., et al. (2020). Social gaze and early neural markers in infancy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Kappes, A., et al. (2023). Emotional Action Readiness in Infancy. Psychological Science.
Hunnius, S., & Bekkering, H. (2020). Social Learning and Infant Action. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Lopez, C., et al. (2022). Proprioception and the Self. Trends in Neurosciences.
Schore, A. N. (2021). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology.
Djalovski, A., et al. (2021). Emotion, ERP, and Body Awareness. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
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