We knew that a horribly neglectful or abusive childhood could result in antisocial or narcissistic personality disorder, but we didn’t know the mechanism. It is now believed that such a childhood can result in these neurons not being used, so they fail to develop normally.
This failure to develop in childhood results in an adult with dysfunctional mirror neurons and the resulting antisocial or narcissistic traits.
If these neurons can be rendered dysfunctional by lack of use, perhaps we can develop interventions which use them, restoring their functionality and healing people with these personality disorders.
It’s an interesting theory.
