More recently, work done with Romanian orphans has shown that those who were cut off from close bonds with an adult by being left in their cots all day, unable to make relationships, had a virtual black hole where their orbitofrontal cortex should be (Chugani et al. 2001). When social relationships are denied during the period in which this part of the brain is maturing (up to the age of 3), there is little hope of fully recovering these lost social abilities or of developing this part of the brain adequately.
